Women Techmakers Meetup at Statista

We are thrilled to announce our next Meetup and Community Get together on January 13th at Statista.

Format:

• 3 talks (each ca. 15 min incl. discussion)
• Time for networking + food + drinks after the presentations
• Talks are held in English
• We will be taking photos and/or film footage at the event. These will be used to share news about our meetups and to publicize upcoming events.

The lineup:
Hello by Anja Schumann. Board member of moinworld.

First talk:
Lamis Beirkdar - "Honest hard lessons for women building careers in tech"

Abstract:
In this talk, Lamis shares the unfiltered reality of building a career as a woman in a world that still isn’t playing fair through a series of personal stories.
This session is for women at all career stages and for allies who want to better understand and support them. Attendees will leave with honest insights, practical reflections, and the reassurance that they are not alone in their struggles.

Bio:
Lamis is currently an Engineering Manager at Statista. She is a seasoned computer engineer and engineering manager with over 15 years of experience, specializing in backend development with languages such as PHP, Java, and recently Kotlin. Her passion lies in working with modern technologies and creating scalable solutions.

Second talk:
Lamis Beirkdar - "Basic Prompting and Agent Usage in Copilot"

Abstract: This talk gives a practical introduction to working effectively with GitHub Copilot (or similar AI coding assistants). You’ll learn how to write clear prompts that produce useful code, how to iteratively refine Copilot’s suggestions, and how to avoid common pitfalls when relying on AI in your daily development work.
We’ll walk through concrete examples of:

• basic prompting patterns that help Copilot understand your intent,
• using “agents” and chat-style interactions to debug, refactor, and explore solutions,

The session is aimed at developers who are new to AI-assisted coding or feel they’re “not getting the most out of Copilot” yet.

Third talk:
Michael Gruczel - Use local running LLMs for Coding

Abstract: This talk builds on the ideas from “Basic Prompting and Agent Usage in Copilot” and shows how to bring similar AI-assisted workflows to your own machine, using locally running large language models (LLMs) for coding.
We’ll cover the core concepts and trade-offs of local models: what they are, why you might want to use them (privacy, control, cost), and where they still fall short compared to cloud-based tools like Copilot. You’ll see practical examples of how to:

• set up and run coding-focused LLMs locally using common tools,
• integrate them into your editor/IDE,
• apply the same prompting and agent patterns you already know from Copilot,

This session is aimed at developers who are curious about self-hosted AI helpers, whether for security reasons, experimentation, or simply more control. You’ll leave with a clear picture of what’s realistically possible today, how to get started, and how to decide when local LLMs are a good fit for your coding workflow.

Bio:
Michael is currently an Engineering Manager at Statista. He is a broadly skilled developer with experience across many aspects of digital transformation, product development, and startups.
He has taken on roles such as developer, DevOps engineer, architect, Scrum Master, Kanban Master, team lead, coach, CTO, and startup founder / early team member, working with Scrum and Kanban in areas like software development, product discovery, big data, and digital transformation.
He is motivated by challenging problems where he can create real impact, have technological freedom, and help shape processes while continuously learning and supporting others.

Who organizes the whole thing?
This event is organized by moinworld e.V.. A non profit organization that emerged from the Women Techmakers Meetup. It provides a network for minorities in IT and at the same time offers a platform for everyone to make a contribution so that IT can be a tool for everyone.

www.moinworld.de