It has been a challenging year for all of us. However, for the Women in Tech Society it has meant a new beginning as they only formed in April, and it's been quite a journey. Valeria Popescu tells us how they've grown.
It has been a challenging year for all of us. However, for us it has meant a new beginning as we only started the society in April, and it’s been quite a journey!
Our purpose from the very beginning was to inspire and encourage more women to get into and thrive in tech, while raising the visibility of female role models and connecting with them. In April, we started our blog series of guides for applying for internships and preparing for technical interviews, and we’ve been developing a corresponding social media. We’ve since run a series of successful campaigns on our platforms such as highlights from Black History Month or ‘happening this week’ posts to increase awareness and help our members in their careers. We also organise weekly interviews with graduates or female students at our University that are thriving into tech to inspire, motivate and help our members.
On the events side, we started early and partnered with the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences for a Speed-networking with Tech Alumni event in August. This was a great opportunity to meet graduates of the University working in the sector and hear about their many different types of jobs and projects.
Our first social event happened in Fresher’s Week and was a first for us all! The Paint Party was a very fun way to meet new students, to encourage them to meet like-minded people and share experiences. Our first ‘Talks with Successful Women in Tech’ event presented two Google employees and the CEO & Founder of Nourish3d and Script3d in Birmingham. They shared their career journeys and provided advice for the attendees, and was very popular.
In order news, our recent partnership with Siemens, the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe, allows us to help them diversify their talent pools and better understand their working process, which led to our second such event involving two Siemens employees. These events helped our members gain more knowledge about applications, companies and also be inspired into all the possibilities that tech offers.
We are looking forward to celebrating this year’s achievements with a Movie Night Event on 19 December as our Christmas social. We’re also planning several interactive events for next year, which include more networking opportunities, workshops where people from a non-tech background can learn the basics of coding, data structures and algorithms, and many more ways to provide advice on how to secure internships and placements at top companies, and much more!
Valeria Popescu
Chair and Co-Founder, Women in Tech
To find out more about Women in Tech visit their website www.birmingham.ac.uk/eps/wit.
There are 42 student groups in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences. To learn more about their projects and activities head to www.birmingham.ac.uk/eps-societies.
