Tech Conferences: Where Are The Women?

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This has been bugging me for a while now. Whenever I attend a conference (excluding BlogHer) there is an incredible lack of women presenters. I found this to be true at Air Jaldi in Dharmasala India, so much so that I felt the need to make a point out of them. It makes me feel like these organizers think women's voices are not as important to search for as men's. I've heard the excuse several times of "Well, there aren't that many women doing this kind of work." Bullshit. There are tons of techie chics doing all kinds of work, many of them end up in the audience, but rarely on stage. I commend the organizers of BlogHer for documenting and showing the tech world that, hey, there are lots of women doing this kind of work and they have a lot to say. Goddamnit.

Another typical example is The Future of Web Apps summit scheduled to happen again next year. I received an email from Mel (just found out Mel is female!), the organizer, saying "get your tickets early!". I remembered the San Francisco summit looked like this:


I suggested a list of women that should be invited to speak and she responded telling me that most of their spots are filled, but they have secured 2 women to speak, Tara Hunt of Citizen Agency and Gina Bianchini of Ning. Well that's something. I guess 2 is the magic number for women speaking at conferences.

My humble solution as of this moment is to not just complain that there are not enough women speaking (though this is a start to help people realize it's a problem) but to start making a list of women media makers, programmers, bloggers, project managers etc. so that when I get the excuse "We couldn't find anyone." I can pull out the list of women that they couldn't find and make some suggestions. So, ladies, help me out. Lets get a list of women who should be speaking at these things and make their names more known. What say you?

Random Moment: Jay is sick

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Tibetan Kids Vlogging!

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We've had some flaky internet the last couple days. Moving around from a family's house to a hotel where we have internet thanks to the German hackers who wired up a mesh network over there. Hurray for wifi hackers!!

Check it out though, we've been teaching some Tibetan teenagers how to vlog. It's a difficult task when they have a computer lab full of donated PCs with Windows 98 on them. Thank goodness some folks donated a Mac mini so it'll be possible to edit and upload some imovie fun. Check out what they've done so far at http://tcvvideo.blip.tv.

I'm getting a little homesick and last night Jay had cold chills and couldn't sleep. Getting sick in India sucks and we hope it's not malaria. Please god, not malaria.

Tibetans Killed Traveling to Dharamsala

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The television footage you see here has been circulating the internet for the last couple weeks. It originates from Pro TV a Romanian TV network. It really emphasizes the power of video as hard proof of what happens in the world. The Chinese government denies that the Tibetans were killed in cold blood. They claim they shot in self defense and that the Tibetans were threatening them. We can clearly see in the video that this is not the case. For a more in depth story see the Boing Boing post. I made this video for myself as well as all you, to try to communicate the reality of what these people have gone through and continue to go through to live free lives. Every child at this Tibetan Children's Village in Dharmasala have made that dangerous trek from Chinese occupied Tibet. Some never make it.

for more info on Tibet's struggle- http://www.freetibet.org/


for the full video from Pro TV

Hangin with Parasher

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After we presented at the University (see that video at Momentshowing), we hung out with Parasher and he showed us around Mumbai. Mumbai is huge and filled with people and traffic and food and sounds. I generally dislike shooting out a car window, feels lazy to me, but man, the stuff you see out the car window in India is unlike anything else. I also like to see what TV is like in other places. Equally as bright and flashy, but so different. Well, except for all the American programming that gets played. And Cricket! Cricket is nuts.

p.s. while i'm fully enjoying my time in Dharamsala at the Air Jaldi conference, something that is pissing me off is, as usual, there are all men speakers and panelists. WTF! Here I am half way around the world and I'm at a fucking boys club tech conference again. I guess it's the same everywhere. See the Schedule HERE, help me find the women, because i'm only seeing like 2.

Party Unbelievable

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man this took all day to finish!! first my compression was fucked up- h.264 does this thing sometimes where it compresses fine for the first half of the video, and then the second half is all shitty looking and super compressed. that kept happening every time i tried, finally i pieced it together in QuickTime Pro. Sheesh! and then i tried to upload to blip and for some reason, here in india, uploading to blip is a pain in the ass. because it says it's all uploaded, but it's tricking you and just sitting there with the progress bar full while it continues to upload for real. so it's midnight...and i'm finally publishing this! just for you to see some monkeys and cobras- it was worth it!

today i was sick. which i think is normal for me when i travel, i tend to get easily overwhelmed and this translates into a head cold. this is exactly what happened. and i'm sad i missed out on some cool things, like hanging out with FTI Pune film students and telling them about videoblogging. SIGH. but i got some rest, and that's what i needed. boo.

Mehndi

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man oh man! am i tired. we just spent a little over 24 hours in Mumbai (aka bombay) one of the biggest cities in the world, bigger than NYC in terms of population density. my head is still spinning from all the activity and people and rickshaws and people and exhaust. thanks to parasher (who you see in this video) for showing us around and letting us stay at his flat. thank god we have friends here!!

About the video- this is called mehndi, which is an application of henna onto the skin for decoration. it's pretty wide spread in the US now, so i'm sure some of you have heard of it and/or even had it done. it's fun to watch and these women were super fast and skilled. i'm totally getting this done for my wedding (someday).

Second Day in India

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Jay and I share a camera if you couldn't tell already. Thanks to Jay for editing! Also featured over at Momentshowing. we're heading to Mumbai tomorrow to do a presentation to some Mass Media students about videoblogging. Pretty darn cool.

Pune, India: Our First Day

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We made it to India (Pune to be specific)! It's a damn long flight, but here we are. Enjoy the evidence of our first day.

The Night Before

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we go to india in the morning, though it will take about 30 hours! here's a little snippet to show off how little we packed. this is probably the least i've ever packed and we're going for a month. i'm impressed with us.

be warned, this video is compressed with h.264, so if you don't have quicktime 7, go get it so you can watch this and all other videos here after.

3 minutes of OMG

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today was like motherfucking christmas. sony lent me a VX2100 camera to check out (OMG). we bought tickets to go to india for a month because we were invited to the air jaldi conference in dharamsala (OMG). i'm speechless and incredibly grateful. so much so, that i decided to compress this video in real widescreen!