Who Are the Women of the Internet of Things?

Internet of Things Technology
Who Are the Women of the Internet of Things?

There is no question about whether the maker community has been changed by the arrival of the Internet of Things. To me, maker projects have always meant micro-controllers and sensors, but now they almost inevitably mean things that are connected. It happens often enough that it is now rare to find a project that does not include a radio of some kind, so I spend a lot of my time talking about them.

The Good Night Lamp, by Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, is a family of connected lamps that lets you share your presence and availability with your loved ones in an easy and ambient way. Photo by Alasdair Allan

As someone that therefore spends a lot of time talking at conferences, I am fed up with appearing on all-male panels. I especially do not like the idea of all-male panels on the Internet of Things, to the point that I have pledged not to do it again.

There are some amazing women working in the Internet of Things field, and I feel really lucky to have been able to work alongside some of them.

So when I saw this thread on Twitter it caught my attention. Not only did I discover some people I really should have been following already, but things got even better when Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino put together a proper list as a Google Sheet.

Talking to Alexandra about why she started the list, she had this to say:

“I’ve been seeing ephemeral attempts to capture a list of women in #iot, and Adrian McEwen’s fabulous list was a great starting point. I wanted to make sure http://iot.london would host Adrian’s list and let people add more as they saw fit. The site tries to be as much of a community resource as possible, and sharing the talented women in this space is naturally a part of that.”

Now I have somewhere to point conference organizers to when they tell me they cannot find any women to speak, and so do you.

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Alasdair Allan is a scientist, author, hacker and tinkerer, who is spending a lot of his time thinking about the Internet of Things. In the past he has mesh networked the Moscone Center, caused a U.S. Senate hearing, and contributed to the detection of what was—at the time—the most distant object yet discovered.

View more articles by Alasdair Allan

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