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.
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.
Who are some women in IoT? Tell me and pl RT.
— Sudha Jamthe #Blacklivesmatter (@sujamthe) April 24, 2017
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.
This happens a lot, why don't we write a list https://t.co/vYAZ8mmHjS
— Alexandra D-S (she/her) (@iotwatch) April 24, 2017
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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