#BeBoldForChange - The Women Using Tech to Empower Others

Important notice

Please note that you should now register for this event through the Skills Matter website at https://skillsmatter.com/meetups/9202-beboldforchange-the-women-using-tech-to-empower-others#overview to enter the venue quickly and efficiently on the night. Registrations through this Meetup page will still be accepted, but you would need to sign up with Skills Matter as well when you arrive at the venue (so it would be easier to do this in advance).

Apologies for the inconvenience but we look forward to welcoming you to a super event space.

We will also now be refunding all the payments taken so far, in alignment with Skills Matter's venue policy, so if you have paid £3, it will be returned and there will be no charge for this event. Please bear with us as this may take a little while!

Event details

To celebrate the 2017 International Women's Day theme, #BeBoldForChange (https://www.internationalwomensday.com/), Tech for Good London is joining forces with GeekGirl Meetup UK (http://www.geekgirlmeetup.co.uk/) (GGMUK) for a bonanza of presentations and discussion from some amazing women who are using tech to empower others.

From politics to AI ethics research, diversity remains a crucial issue in 2017. We’ll hear from inspiring female innovators from different sides of the tech for good sector about the projects they’re working on to improve lives and challenge the status quo. Our speakers are:

• Scarlett Montanaro, Crack + Cider (https://crackandcider.com/)

CRACK + CIDER is a new model for charitable giving that Scarlett Montanaro started in her living room with Co-Founder, Charlotte Cramer, in 2015 with a mere £614. It allows the public to buy essential items for rough sleepers that are then distributed to shelters and soup kitchens across London and, since 2016, San Francisco. The initiative has gained $100,000 in donations so far making the lives of thousands of people on the streets that little bit warmer.

• Janet Chapman, Crowd2Map (https://crowd2map.wordpress.com/)

Crowd2Map is a volunteer-run project crowdmapping remote areas of rural Tanzania to facilitate the Female Genital Mutilation outreach work by the Tanzania Development Trust and protect girls against FGM. Anyone with an internet connection can help map from satellite images, they are currently mapping here http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/2501 (http://tasks.hotosm.org/project/2501) and need your help!

• Ade Adewunmi, Government Digital Service (GDS) (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digital-service)

Ade works at the intersection of data, product delivery and strategy. At the UK's Government Digital Service she is responsible for the development of the suite of data products at the core of the government's data infrastructure. She blogs about product development, and building effective teams and culture in digital organisations at https://medium.com/@adeadewunmi

• Immy Kaur, Project 00 (https://www.project00.cc/)

Project 00 [zero zero] is a collaborative studio of architects, strategic designers, programmers, social scientists, economists and urban designers practising design beyond its traditional borders, ventures include WikiHouse, Open Desk, Civic Systems Lab and more. Immy is also the Founder of Impact Hub Birmingham.

For the second half of the event, GGMUK will be chairing a panel discussion about some of the bold thinking and changes needed to support greater diversity and inclusiveness in tech. It will explore the resources, communities and networks that three panelists have used to drive change, with practical tips for how you can also take action, with the following panelists:

• Anjali Ramachandran

Anjali is co-founder of Ada’s List (http://adaslist.co/), a global community for women in technology. With nearly 2500 members and growing steadily, Ada’s List aims to create a more equal, inclusive technology industry. Anjali has a background in media and is a freelance editorial consultant with Storythings (http://storythings.com/), a storytelling company for the digital age. In her spare time, she writes the Other Valleys (http://www.othervalleys.net/about/) newsletter, featured in Forbes, which covers innovative and creative technology news and projects from the emerging markets.

• Leonie van der Linde

Leonie graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2013, specialising in graphic design, illustration, and animation. Her first role was as a concept artist for children’s story-driven coding game, Erase All Kittens (https://eraseallkittens.com/), which at the time consisted of two co-founders. After six months of helping to create awesome characters and levels, she became the third co-founder and lead illustrator and animator. Leonie also creates E.A.K. merchandise, such as capes and soft toys.

• Dina Ariss

Dina Ariss is a Data analyst at Manchester Metropolitan University (https://www2.mmu.ac.uk/). She is interested in data analysis, open data, and user research design. Having grown up in Syria, she is an activist for gender equality and refugee empowerment. She volunteers for Chayn (http://chayn.co/) to work on the gender violence toolkits and has run various refugee-focused hackathons before. She is also an active member of the WYSE network and sits on the Refugee Design Council for EmpowerHack (http://empowerhack.io/).

• Ronda Zelezny-Green (http://rondazg.com/)

Ronda (http://rondazg.com/) is the world's foremost expert on gender and mobile learning, and was awarded a Fulbright Award to lead an action research project working with secondary school girls in Nairobi, Kenya to enhance their after-school learning experiences with mobile reading. She is also a regular ITU Girls in ICT Day (http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Digital-Inclusion/Women-and-Girls/Girls-in-ICT-Portal/Pages/Girls-in-ICT-Portal-Home.aspx) participant, contributor and invited speaker. Last Friday she earned her PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London.

We’ll have two opportunities for community announcements this time, with those that are relevant to the theme halfway through, so please send them through early so we can line you up. It’s your chance to promote projects, events and jobs to the combined Tech for Good and GeekGirls communities.

Thanks to our sponsors:

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