On October 22-23 in Mountain View, Kaliya Hamlin and a group of others is putting on a really cool conference that I thought everyone should know about:

She’s Geeky
A Women’s Tech (un)conference
October 22-23 in Mountain View, CA.

This event is designed to bring together women from a range of technology-focused disciplines who self identify as geeky. Their goal is to support skill exchange and learning between women working in diverse fields and to create a space for networking and talking about issues faced by women in technology.

Really essential topics are being brought forward (as this is an unconference, input is welcome AND used) such as the lack of women in open source, dealing with analysts, a discussion on whether or not there is such thing as feminist technology, negotiating, speaker training, and the list goes on…

Personally, I believe this conference is important because it isn’t just about some top-down idea of what women should be like in order to ’succeed in a man’s world’. This is about women (and men) gathering to come up with ideas and solutions going forward. Some topics are meant to provoke discussion and debate and unravel assumptions. Other discussions are meant to give the tools for change. I feel really hopeful that this approach is a good one for our community and I hope that everyone goes.

And, if you are like us and can’t go (boooo! we’re out of town), you can sponsor. They are still looking for people to contribute financially to keeping this a low-cost event. Email shesgeeky at gmail or post your intention on the wiki. Any and all additional information can be found on their website: shesgeeky.org