What do women want at a hackathon
Time & location
Thursday 10 August, 14.00 - 15.00, Drummond Center East, Level 3
Occasion
The Dutch Gender gap group wants to host a hack-a-thon to increase womens participation in coding for different Wikimedia platforms. In order to tune in with the needs of the peer group of possible participants, we want to host a session to share experiences with hack-a-thons and learn from you what your needs and wishes for a diversity hack-a-thon would be. Would you want it to be women only? What kind of workshops or sessions would you want? What kind of themes would you like to the hack-a-thon to address? Are there any other things we need to take into account (for example food, sholarships, day care e.g.).
What will we be doing
We want to do an informal round the table were you can tell us about your experiences with and wishes for a diversity hack-a-thon and share some other things that might be important for us to take in account while organising such an event.
Contacts
If you have questions or want to reach out, please reach out to User:Ciell or User:Siryn. Hope to see you there! We have stroopwafels... :)
Main findings
- women feel more secure at women-only events; you can facilitate safe spaces at general events, but the atmosphere will still be different
- learn from others: Wikimedia Austria hosted successful women-only hack-a-thon (documentation is ?)
- make sure there is a good mentor programme for new comers
- female only events have a very different in atmosphere then events were men are allowed
- keep the end goal in mind (getting more female contributors for Wikimedia projects); then decide upon the best way to accomplish this
- tagging on to existing events (the Wikimedia hack-a-thon in Barcelona) might present a good opportunity to host a female-only event
- put thought into communication, choice of words and imagery for the event (e.g. 'hack-a-thon has a male, anarchist, stigma)
You can read the notes taken on the etherpad of the session