Python for Everyone - PyLadies' Insights Panel Discussion

Speaker 1 [00:01]

So we're really excited to have the opportunity to talk today, and yeah, if you don't know who the we I'm talking about is, I'm talking about PyLadies. So, yeah! So for anyone not yet familiar with PyLadies, we're an international mentorship group. We are everywhere. there's four chapters in Germany although actually I heard a rumor that there's another one about to start in Cologne so that's exciting and maybe some other chapters will get born out of being here at the conference and talking to us so our focus is helping more women to become active participants and leaders in the Python open source community of which we're all part of and our mission is to promote, educate, and advance a diverse Python community, and we do that through outreach, education, conference attendance like this, events, and social gatherings. We're also trying to provide a friendly support network for women and also other folks that feel marginalized in the community so that there's a bridge to the larger community and the larger Python world. So anyone with an interest in Python is really encouraged to participate. As I mentioned, in Germany we have four chapters of which we have some representation, not of, unfortunately, every chapter, but most of the chapters we have represented here today with our wonderful four guests. I'm a moderator today, but I'm also part of PyLadies, so extra excitement there. And we have about three themes that we're gonna go into in depth, And at the end, we will also have time for some questions from yourselves in the audience. So get ready with those questions, prepare. All right, without further ado, let me introduce our panelists. And I will do so in the order they're set, which is not the order that I have written down here, but that's fine, because I know them all. So right at the end here, feel so far away from me, we have Ellen, who is an organizer of PyLadies Karlsruhe since 2019. And she is working as a data scientist at IBM in Karlsruhe. Next, we have Maren, who's an organizer of my chapter, Berlin chapter of PyLadies. She's been organizing since 2021 and is working as a machine learning engineer at Freenow. We then have Liza, who's an organizer of PyLadies Munich since 2019, and she's working as a staff developer advocate, sorry, as a staff developer advocate at Avon. And then we have Heike. Heike is an organizer also of PyLadies Berlin. She started in 2018, and she's now working as a back-end developer at Transfer Media. Okay, fantastic. Thank you for everyone giving a warm welcome. I am Jessica. I am also an organizer of PyLadies Berlin. I've been with them also since 2018. But I just have the pleasure of asking the questions and talking to this wonderful lineup of speakers today. Okay, so we're going to start with where it all started. So we have, like, four different folks here who are all involved in organising, and the big question is, like, how did you get started with this thing? Did you kind of get up one day and think, you know, I have nothing else that I would rather do, I'm just going to dedicate it to writing some documents and calling lots of venues figuring out bugs in meetup.com because that's a thing um or like what was it that got this fire burning in in all of you so yeah maybe i will hand over to marin first if you want to give us a few words

Speaker 2 [04:25]

So, I've been involved with various women in tech communities, especially the Women Who Code community in Brisbane where I lived for a while and I benefited greatly from this community personally and professionally and then I moved to Berlin two years ago and benefited greatly from the PyLadies community and I wouldn't be sitting here today without these communities and so my motivation is to give back to the community. I would like to help other women to overcome the challenges that I faced and help them grow in their career and also become active participants and leaders in the tech world.

Speaker 1 [05:08]

And was this something similar for you, Heike, or was that slightly different?

Speaker 3 [05:13]

For me, it was more like I felt on the on the first meetup I attended that it's super beneficial to get involved deeper by just being part of the community and I also think you voiced it pretty clearly in the beginning that there's a demand for help in so many ways not just organizing or actually doing the workshops and coding activity, but there's so much more to do and organizing the events and It was also a super welcoming space for me, and I wanted to stay with the people and really experience what it means to be in tech and what lifestyle this is actually, what you do when you not work, but just work on coding projects, and there are so many fun projects also around, and you hear about it when you're at the meetups, but also when you are surrounded by the people and work on the Orga team a lot so yeah that was for me the reason why I wanted to be on the Orga team as well because of the people and the community

Speaker 1 [06:20]

our our chapter was kind of already existing but i know that in munich when you got started liza that the community there had kind of dwindled and there wasn't too much going on and you kind of kick-started that yourself so how was this experience for you for getting started

Speaker 4 [06:36]

I would say it was an accident. But kind of I was always going to these meetups in Munich, especially Pi Munich, it is a big group in the city of Munich. And for some reason, there were only me and maybe an Olga, Olga is there. I was always seeing Olga there in the meetups. And the organizer of Pi Munich, he said, like, you know, why don't you two organize Pi Ladies Munich? And there was also another woman who also helped us in the beginning. Her name is Isis. And we all got together and started to organize. And at the same point, I feel like it was a way that I was, not that I didn't feel welcome. I really like PI Munich, but I wanted to bring more people and to make it more open. And in the way to do that, I also felt more welcome in my own community now. So it was quite interesting. But you start to organize one event, two events, three years later, you're like, what happened? And you get a lot of good feedback. And that's what I think, for me personally, this motivates me to continue contributing we don't make mistakes and it's a work in progress but we do that all out of a volunteer time and out of a free time so I think it's just I really love Python community

Speaker 1 [08:06]

Thank you. Yeah, and then Ellen, how was that in Karlsruhe? I think it's a different experience for you as well, right? I think there was no chapter in Karlsruhe

Speaker 5 [08:15]

Right, there was no chapter. So we founded PyLadies Karlsruhe in 2019. Johanna, who is the other organizer, and me. And for us, it was actually, we both knew two other PyLadies chapters. So Johanna had been with PyLadies Hamburg for some time, and I had been with PyLadies Berlin, and we both just really liked it there. Like, we really liked the experience there and the atmosphere. And then Johanna and I actually met at another Women in Tech meetup. It was not Python specific, but yeah, another meetup. And we talked and then we found out we were both that we had been in PyLadies before. And then we discussed founding PyLadies Castle and then basically we just did it. And yeah, Castle also has a very strong IT community, I think, with many technical companies, many IT companies, the technical university there. So yeah, that really made sense and that's why we founded PyLadies Karlsruhe.

Speaker 1 [09:19]

Fantastic. So hopefully that's also a big inspiration for anybody sat in the room thinking, hey, there is an Empire Ladies chapter where I'm at. How can I get that started? I will also just quickly switch the slide to the one that has our Get Involved call for action. So while we're talking, you can also sign up to our Slack if you're not already in there. So I think it would be a little amiss to not kind of mention the pandemic that we've just lived through for the last two years we're still living through there's still a lot of ramifications and this has had a big effect on meetups and also as in individuals so I would like to ask like how did the COVID pandemic COVID-19 pandemic affect you maybe Heike would you like to start Thank you.

Speaker 3 [10:10]

So it did make a rapid change in how we structure and how we did the meetups, definitely, because we had to go online fully, like, from now to nothing, like, basically, and I think it took away a lot for myself, actually, because I do enjoy the real life meetups to actually sit in a room with a bunch of people, do the workshops, have little groups on little tables and working together, and you see how they actually learn together and pick on little problems and this is all gone from all of a sudden. But actually also we did learn to use the tools that were there. Also the remote tools, they developed a lot over the last two years because there was a high demand. And we managed to, I think we managed pretty well to get this all into to the online room and the online world using different tools to also have a simulation of these little workshop groups, and we tried to regularly have the meetups, but, yes, the number of meetups, they decreased a bit. They got a bit irregular. But PyLeadis is still there, and we took on the challenge, and I think we made it through pretty well, and now we can have real meetups again now so it was a change and it was not easy also but yeah we made it happened

Speaker 1 [11:44]

And one of the things that I've loved is that we've been able to collaborate more as a group like the Pi Ladies Germany and even beyond that. So, Eliza, maybe you want to talk to that because I know you've done a lot with other groups.

Speaker 4 [11:58]

That's true. I took the pandemic also has an opportunity to connect with people around the world, especially in even participating of other communities, because you can learn so much how they are organized and what are their purpose and how everything they do. you can also cope it has a good practice good practice and some groups that we collaborate was pilot is paris pilot is dublin i was also participating pilot is ghana so it gave me this feeling of being more a world citizen and they were not alone but also inside germany we start to talk more with each other because we are pretty much more isolated before so we have a i don't know we are growing in a more organized way and we can benefit more i think having these structures uh yeah i do believe it that uh that's it uh how was it for you did we also did events together with pilates building yeah do you remember yeah so we did events together you will participate and collaborate in other lovelace right yeah maybe you can talk how was in pilates berlin

Speaker 2 [13:19]

Should I make a start?

Speaker 5 [13:23]

Yeah.

Speaker 2 [13:24]

Yeah, so going online was affecting me in a positive as well as negative way. So as I said, I had lived in Brisbane in Australia before until just before the pandemic started. I moved to Berlin in February 2020. I had one month where I got to know people and that was great. But then everything shut down and everything was online. And so, yeah, I didn't meet many people since then. and for example like i met heike for the first time in person today which is great um yeah so

Speaker 4 [14:00]

It was good.

Speaker 2 [14:01]

great to see many online things happening but I also felt a bit isolated but one very positive effect for me was that there were more online workshops as well for example Rishama Shaikh who is speaking later today she started organizing the first scikit-learn online sprint and it was supposed to be in New York and because of the pandemic she made it online and I remember being really excited i was like oh cool i can i can actually take part so i signed up and i have been involved with four more online sprints organized by data umbrella and recently the first in-person psychic learn sprint in paris and yeah it's been great like it has opened the door for me to participate in these events that i otherwise wouldn't have been able to participate

Speaker 5 [14:56]

Yeah, I agree. I would say for us, it also had two sides. So I think for us as PyLadies Karlsruhe, we founded the group in the end of 2019, so really shortly before the pandemic. And we were really still building the community. I think we had like two or three meetups and it was really tough for us. Like we tried an online meetup as well, but we had to feel like especially because many people didn't really know each other yet and the community was still so new that that was really difficult so we decided to kind of take a break there and yeah then just try again with in-person events when possible again but what I think was really good especially for us as a young meetup group was that we could really yeah collaborate with the other meetup groups we had like this joint Ada Lovelace event which was really awesome and also the other meetup groups help with like setting up some stuff like stream yard for example and also I think like yeah just this exchange and really you know like being able to participate in an event in Berlin would not have otherwise been possible for example so that was really nice and I hope that's also something we can continue like yeah this joint PI Ladies Germany I think that's really one good thing that came from that

Speaker 1 [16:19]

Absolutely agree. Yeah, so there's, I get the sense of like, coming together and like working together. But as far as I know, all of the chapters are decentralized, which means they self organize, which means you can make decisions about your chapter, however you kind of really like as the organizing team. so how how does this work for a community that's like all around the world I mean how do we kind of keep on the same mission or on the same page with the message that we want to share maybe I say you have some thoughts on that

Speaker 4 [16:58]

Definitely. But I think in any kind of organization, when you have the values that you have, and you have this clear mission, it kind of goes naturally. But there is a lot of work in the PyLadies international chapter in general. There is a Slack channel, there is a lot of how you can set up your chapter in your city. city that is support from the psf and also from the psv i'm not sure if you are aware but it's the python python software foundation so very grateful that we do have some sort of organization that we can we have this freedom to start things and i think that's decentralized yeah we are we were remote even before the pandemic somehow right because when we volunteer We do that in our free time, so it's not like we always have time to go to our office. We don't have an office. So it's like we use the online tools to communicate with each other through groups and so on. So kind of this helped me in particular to learn a lot about like self-organization also. How can you manage things, you know, with other people? I'm very grateful for my team. They are very nice and self-organized. And I guess it's the same for PyLadies Berlin or PyLadies Karlsruhe. You kind of, I don't know, maybe remotely already, right, somehow.

Speaker 3 [18:25]

Now you grow together and you you have a variety of all those online tools, right? Yeah, and then you decide okay What's working best for you? Where do we need? less passwords how to we distribute them and share them and lock in and all this and Or maybe not so you don't have this Yeah issue of getting access rights, but anyway, you're not gonna go into this It's about how you work together and this was online before.

Speaker 4 [18:56]

And also that is I think that is like this trust because we are all volunteers So we really rely that okay. Can you help move this and that there is ownership? Because it's very hard to run things alone so you really depend on all the volunteers and this sense of responsibility, but I think we all have this

Speaker 2 [19:18]

uh, gold.

Speaker 4 [19:19]

Go that we want to contribute to the community and we take this responsibility and we make it into actions

Speaker 3 [19:26]

Yeah, you also have people coming in with expertise in certain things. So some people do all the Twitter and social media stuff Some people do more as an on-site organization finding the companies talking to them and if you can distribute this Naturally to the people who like to do this because that's what they're good at That's what they bring in to the organization already then it's actually okay, and it's easier and grows naturally Then you bring it all together in using the software tools we have, the Slack channels and Google Documents and everything.

Speaker 4 [20:04]

Thanks, technology.

Speaker 1 [20:09]

So maybe I would ask Marin as the Berlin chapter has been around for slightly longer and I feel like we have actually quite a few rotating organizers. Would you have anything to add in terms of like how we just within a chapter kind of managed to keep in sync?

Speaker 2 [20:28]

Yeah, for example, we do community surveys and recently we opened our organizational meetings to community members so that not only the organizers can take part but also our community if they're interested and so they can give feedback to us and so I think this is a good way of staying in touch with the community and making sure that we are not out of sync with the community and also

Speaker 5 [20:56]

Yeah.

Speaker 2 [20:57]

like are on the same page.

Speaker 1 [21:01]

I feel like Melissa mentioned yesterday in the keynote the importance of governance and also of a code of conduct. So we actually have a code of conduct for PyLadies. Maybe Ellen, would you be comfortable to talk a little bit to how the code of conduct works and how that kind of allows people to join maybe anybody's event but feel like it's a a safe space.

Speaker 5 [21:26]

Yeah, sure, I can. So I can only share from from our perspective. So what we do so far, so our focus is really on building this community. And for us, the most important thing is really like, that the events are something where everyone feels welcomed and feels included. So what we did is actually we copied that from PyLadies Hamburg and Berlin, I think I think you have like something on your meetups that you mentioned, for example, like, their code of conduct but also for example who can join and yeah you know like in a way that we don't really want to exclude but also focus on diversity so that's something that we do there

Speaker 4 [22:11]

Thank you.

Speaker 5 [22:13]

Yeah, and for the rest, I think we've also had really positive experiences there with people reaching out to us, like, hey, I saw this meetup, I think the topic is really cool, I would like to join, is it okay? So I think we had really, really cool experiences there. Maybe, if it's okay, I would also like to add something to the decentralization part you just mentioned before. because I think that one is really interesting for Karlsruhe because when we founded the meetup group, actually we spoke with Alexander from Pi Data Südwest and we discussed actually doing Pi Ladies Südwest as well and we decided to go for Pi Ladies Karlsruhe because we both live in Karlsruhe and for us it's easier to manage. But this is also something that we would be open to and actually I discussed it during lunch today with someone already that probably Stuttgart will join and we will be PyLadies Südwest as well so this is also something interesting I think on like the different cities and groups working together like it also doesn't have to be one city like it also makes sense in some regions probably to partner and to actually share the organization and I think that's also something really nice to have this cooperation

Speaker 1 [23:32]

And then one thing maybe also to mention is there is also a Pie Ladies Council, which I think is something that kind of came about in the last year or two, which then is like a more scoped out thing. So that's like a global council where members can get nominated. One of the members of the council is actually at the conference, which was really cool to meet someone that's doing that work at that scale. And this is something that anybody within our community can join to officially become a member. and then they have the right to vote in the when the council's getting put together so maybe we kind of mentioned this topic then of like inclusion and who our events are primarily focused on but like how we're also uh you know trying to make it as welcoming and a safer space for as many people as possible so maybe we can start to talk about how we are welcoming folks from different backgrounds and for other marginalized groups to be able to join the Pi Ladies community. Liza, maybe you want to kick this off?

Speaker 4 [24:41]

So, this is a very interesting question, because I think a lot of people think about the Pi ladies, due to the name also, you think it's only some sort of a gender, and yes, we are all women and we are here, so it gives this impression, right? But I feel that this community is more than that, and this is a work in progress and it's something that we need to really think and try to see how can we bring people for this comment because for me in particular marginalized people are not I wouldn't say just is a gender related thing I think there are things that we actually don't take into consideration such as poverty and violence and people are out there, people who are members of a Python community somehow, and they are not being seen because, yeah, maybe they born in a different country, maybe they are not yet. They didn't have the same chances that we had to be here right now. And I think that they are also sort of marginalized. So I think there's so much that we can do it. But that is like a dream, right? You always want to do more. But I think Python community, I think we should also look into these groups, people who do not have a laptop to work, who are really like boring things and so on, and people who are right now facing violence. How can we actually be there for these communities? It's a question for you, too, because I think We are trying our best here in some sense, but somehow we still, we didn't find the answers for that. Some stuff that we can do, we can try to reach more people who have that background. We can make our events more public. I think online is a great way because there are people everywhere they can join. And I saw people from different countries that could also attend our events. But yeah, it feels like there are more to be done and even including people who have disabilities, there's something that we don't think in software. We don't bring those because we already have our bias. And I feel that PyLadies, because we have this mission, it's maybe something that we should consider more and have more those people also included or, you know, bringing this chance today. but yeah I can't say it's like yeah for me it's how I feel

Speaker 3 [27:24]

I think it's also about having a role model maybe on the PyLadies organizer team or...

Speaker 4 [27:31]

or whoever.

Speaker 3 [27:32]

in whatever all other group to show that this space is open for everybody but yes we don't have a variety of all marginalized group on on the auger team because we cannot do this um but we want to be open for this um and people can come up they can join pi ladies as participants or organizers they can come to us to the booth and talk to us what we also can change or what we can do to be more open if we maybe are not right now because we are also not aware of it because we are in our bubble as well we try to learn as much as we can to be more open as well we talk about it we're not perfect on the subject ourselves I think but we try to and that's the first step yes

Speaker 4 [28:24]

Yeah, I think the first step, actually, it's realize that we all have our bias and we all have some thought, oh, I didn't thought about this, actually, why not, right? And this is, I think, this is the first step of the reflection. But there is only, we only can be stronger with the help of everyone. So if you can be our allies and if you can contribute somehow to the community, I think that's actually, we cannot, how to say, I don't think we are the only people responsible because we are also in this struggle so when more people help i think that is really wonderful so thank you everyone who is here because i think somehow you are listening to what we have to say and yeah share the word with others

Speaker 1 [29:12]

Do you want to add anything?

Speaker 2 [29:16]

Yeah, I can add that.

Speaker 3 [29:18]

I

Speaker 2 [29:19]

personally find that I need to think about other marginalized groups more. And I found that when I was living in Australia, where I was an immigrant, I had a stronger focus on marginalized groups because I was belonging to one myself. But now here, back in Germany, this is my country. So from an ethnic point of view, I'm in the majority. And I recognize to myself that I fall back into certain patterns of thinking like for example just the other day I found out that there's a Turkish and tech community and it's big and I haven't heard about it and I and I was thinking sitting there thinking why have I not heard about this and I realized it's because I haven't even thought about other marginalized groups in tech and so yeah something that I want to do is to attend their meetups and to talk to them and find out what their challenges are and maybe hopefully collaborate so um yeah and also find other marginalized groups and

Speaker 4 [30:21]

And even like how they say, if you want to contribute to these groups and you have a company or you are managing a company, why not just reach them? Because sometimes we are running volunteers, so it really helps when people reach us and try to help, I think. So it's great that you're doing that.

Speaker 1 [30:42]

And I think, Ellen, that your meetup started in German language, right? And you kind of made a conscious decision to change in terms of if you can attend? Yeah, that was a little...

Speaker 5 [30:54]

that was a little bit of um yeah so in the beginning i think we asked actually in the beginning of the meetup and then um we decided to go with with english um yeah also a little bit because i think sometimes then if you ask if everyone speaks german then you know some people always say like yeah but they don't understand everything so um yeah that's also something we then changed to include everyone yeah and I think generally I also fully agree like it's important to realize that it's not perfect yet but also just to to keep an open mind and to keep improving on that

Speaker 1 [31:37]

So I think I can speak on behalf of all of us that we really welcome feedback and we are very open to you coming and talking to us. I think we also really appreciate that, you know, our demography on stage today is not fully representative of our community and we also very much respect the need for spaces for other groups of people. I can highly also recommend the Bee Pocket space that is run by one of the speakers from this conference. and there are lots out there but we also really want to ensure that our space is as inclusive as possible and as open as possible for as many folks so that they feel welcome to join and raise these issues with us so lastly I would also invite on this topic I would invite everyone to join our meetups we have some great talks up in our April meetup which is actually happening next week we have a great talk from Christine who's here but yeah but she's going to talk about intersectional feminism in the community we also have a great talk about going from academia to industry so making these kind of moves and I think that's a great way that we can start to learn together okay so we're gonna move on and talk a little bit more about diversity equity and inclusion which is commonly shortened to DEI, in general and in the Python community. So we've kind of already stated to you that our mission is to build and advance a more diverse Python community. What is it that you as individuals wish the broader community knew? can start with Maren.

Speaker 2 [33:32]

Yeah, I think...

Speaker 4 [33:33]

I

Speaker 2 [33:36]

Actually, I would like to give the question back.

Speaker 4 [33:40]

This is a hard one.

Speaker 1 [33:42]

This is your call for action. What's it? What's it like when we work with companies and they're like, hey, and we'd love to host you like Look, how can we improve those interactions? This is our chance to tell folks

Speaker 3 [33:57]

Yeah, I think maybe I have something there. If you're in a bigger corporate, you have a lot of people that want to join maybe, but also you only have a few that are very active on things. And then the threshold or the barrier is a bit high for people to join. And then this comes into the community. So it reflects a bit. And I think to make it more open also in the community but also in bigger companies to give back to the community would be something helpful.

Speaker 1 [34:40]

and how can they give back what's what what do we want what do this is you have a room full of people you have an audience online this is the opportunity to tell people how can they best help Pets.

Speaker 3 [34:53]

Yeah, well, for doing the groundwork, which I usually do or see myself more, we need spaces

Speaker 1 [34:54]

Yeah.

Speaker 3 [35:01]

to hold the meetups, and we want to go back into personal meetups, so we need office spaces and a bit of support there for the organization of things, simply catering as well, so we can be hosted by a bunch of people. um yeah and also it's interesting to get speakers as well um can be from the company that we're hosted in we prefer um yeah people from marginalized groups obviously um but to show the community that there is a space for it and they are out there and they can contribute um so that's yeah that's always something we like to be supported with also So if you're a company who is just specialized in some software tools or also other things that could help the PyLadies chapters to organize themselves, like licenses or tickets for conferences are always something we like to use for the raffles and to give away to other people in the community who can maybe not attend the conference or who cannot pay for a license or whatever and this is also cool yeah that's

Speaker 4 [36:17]

There are many ways.

Speaker 3 [36:18]

All this stuff, yeah.

Speaker 4 [36:19]

So I think it's like it's not out of ideas, you can always find a way that you can contribute independent of which group do you belong but if you also have this mission of you you can contribute in so many ways it's not only about money or like grants or something but also just being there and being open to listen and to participate somehow this is already for us already a contribution also. And yeah, that's what I wanted to add. What do you think?

Speaker 3 [36:52]

I think it's good.

Speaker 5 [36:54]

Maybe if I can add to that. So I think my general message would be just reach out to us. For companies, just reach out and see if we can host a meetup together, how we can support each other there. For participants, if you aren't sure, if you maybe want to help us organizing something, just ping us. If you have an idea, we are always really open to new members and new ideas. It doesn't have to be a company event, but also, for example, hackathons or get-togethers or code-togethers and also yeah maybe like also specifically for for other cities like for example yeah also specifically now addressing people from other cities in the southwest of Germany just ping us if you are interested in joining the network like really don't hesitate just just reach out

Speaker 3 [37:44]

Yeah, but also speakers, that's something we are also looking out for all the time because that's what we want to give back to the community. Speakers are always welcome. If you have an interesting topic you're working on or you actually, it's your daily work life and you work on some data science or a patent topic or with some certain tools you want to show or present, that's cool, also good.

Speaker 2 [38:11]

Yeah, and I would like to add something, like now I'm ready.

Speaker 3 [38:18]

As one more thing for the workshops, this is also something, if you want to talk about a topic or a Python topic, we're also here to support you, getting you on the way. Maybe you have something you want to talk about but you don't know how and you never presented something, then talk to us. We get you on the way.

Speaker 4 [38:37]

There were mentorship sessions held by Pilates Berlin to help you, I don't know, to write a talk and so on.

Speaker 3 [38:37]

We help you. conference paper yeah but now I'm finished with my topic

Speaker 2 [38:53]

Yeah, and I would like to add to that that we also always welcome mentors of any gender So if anyone has an expertise in something and can teach something that's always great and we now in US Pilates Berlin run Regular monthly open-source hack night. So if you've got open-source experience, we really welcome people to yeah jump in as a mentor and support our participants in getting pull requests submitted and also one last point that I would like to make is that yeah if people want to help the best thing you can do is to listen sometimes so most people most people are good with listening but there are some people who like jump in and talk a lot and like I know what you need so that's not a good approach good approaches to yeah listen and then yeah have a conversation.

Speaker 4 [39:51]

Because I think the people who organize, they have a good feeling of what the community needs, actually, right? Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1 [40:03]

We've talked a lot about all the things, and I hope everyone's making notes of all these things that we would love to have support with. One question that comes up a lot, that we get a lot, is, like, is this space for me, and can I join? So we did just kind of preface the previous session talking about, like, it's for everybody, but how does that break down? Like, where are folks able to join? Where is it not appropriate for folks maybe to join? Maybe, Ellen, do you want to start? You mentioned before, for example, the code of conduct and what you had on the meetup page around attendance.

Speaker 5 [40:46]

Right. Yeah, so I would say, I mean, generally, I would say, yes, there is a space available and we are happy about support. And if you are unsure, just ask us and we will, yeah, we will see to figure out. But I would say generally, yes, we are open and happy about support and also, yeah, I mean, I think the Python community generally is really supporting. It's also nice to see all of you here listening to this discussion. So I would say, yeah, just talk to us.

Speaker 3 [41:28]

I also think sometimes we do have a bit more restrictive space just to be actually open and safe for this particular event. We did have women only or people who identify as women events to have this good and friendly space actually to provide it. And sometimes I think we are a bit restrictive, but we also, we talk about it, we make this decision before first before the event and we also do have other events where we open up more um but it's important i think to have this safe space and that's why we sometimes are more restrictive but it doesn't mean that we want to exclude everybody um but this is also something i think we should talk about or say um so you're not irritated by it but generally yeah the thing is to be open for everybody to to give them space to learn together um but this has to be a bit restrictive maybe sometimes to open up afterwards now just as a second point to this

Speaker 1 [42:42]

and as attendees or as speakers or what are we talking about here I think Munich you have someone who's organizing who's not identifying as a woman right yeah

Speaker 4 [42:53]

Yes. Hello, Antón Caceres. So, one of our organizers, he's a man and he doesn't identify as a woman, but this person has been supportive in our chapter since the beginning and had many, many years of experience running meetups, running conferences, and I don't think we could do it all alone without this guidance. local guidance how our local communities already is but also with the same mission that we had it so I don't know I don't think it's like we should be restricted in terms of organization because we can get also feedback from really different backgrounds and different people and in particular we do have a man who is organizer of Pilates Munich and I think it just really adds different perspective for how the things are organized because this person in particular also really want to include more people in the Python community and that's why I think it goes well I'm not sure I I think it goes more how they say the intentions of contributing them specifically gender or nationality or any other aspect because for me the values are what is important in the end that we all want to be in this together

Speaker 3 [44:21]

Yeah, we shouldn't put ourselves into a bubble we try to escape

Speaker 4 [44:25]

Yeah, because I feel that it's like, and then we excluding people actually who are from different backgrounds and also why not learning from, like other groups, they have so many time already organized, why not learning from them? And if one of them wants to also volunteer and organize with us, why not? I think it would be very hard for me in particular, or only me and Olga doing. So I think it really added more because of the experience. So for me, I didn't think about gender. I just thought, okay, this person also wants to do this and wants to include more people.

Speaker 3 [45:05]

Yeah, but that's the core of what we do, I think, and if you get good energy, good vibes from this, I think that's fine, yeah, but I think every chapter probably decides this on their own agenda, and they talk about it, but yeah, it's more important to respect the code of conduct, and then you can get the right people on board who have this spirit.

Speaker 4 [45:30]

Good intentions, I think.

Speaker 3 [45:32]

Yeah, and then it doesn't matter what gender or where you come from and then it will fit, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 [45:39]

maybe a slightly different aspect to that though is the opportunity that one does get when you're filling a space in a community so if we have a meetup that is like a limited number of spaces be mindful of the space that you're filling if you become an organizer it's going to be a bunch of work like let's not kid ourselves but there's also a lot of opportunity that comes with being an organizer you get to talk to companies at a like eye-to-eye level and this can really help your job hunting if you're job hunting become an organizer great way to meet lots of companies and that that is a certain amount of like privilege that you get if you are sitting in one of these positions and that's what we also have to all recognize of like the space that we may be taking where somebody else would really benefit from that so i think as we normally say for the meetups it's like open for everybody but have this mindfulness going in of if you're taking the space who else is not having that opportunity or how can you even use this opportunity to support somebody else so one thing that we really like to promote is bringing a plus one to the meetup

Speaker 4 [46:50]

in the meetup? We do that actually, so in PyLarys Munich I started with plus one only because we didn't, we already have PyMunich and most of the PyMunich they are great, don't get me wrong, but there were more men in the meetups, so we don't want to get in this inequality if there is 50% of women in the world, why not bring them to the meetup? So we say like everyone is welcome to come and see, but if you attend more often, try to bring a co-worker, try to bring someone else, your wife maybe wants to learn how to code, try to bring more people that you think it could benefit from that, because there are already a lot of space out there for more people, so to say. But I think it's a good way to to make it an equilibrium but we should not be so restrictive but yeah

Speaker 1 [47:50]

So we have about 12 minutes left, and I don't really know how Slido works, so I don't know if folks have put questions in there, but I don't really see them. If there is a volunteer in the audience or someone who is better familiar with Slido than I, can you let me know, because we would open it up for people here. Thank you, I see someone waving and coming towards me. Open up for people in the room to ask questions.

Speaker 4 [48:20]

I'm trying to look right now. Here's Kupesal, right? The name of the room.

Speaker 3 [48:27]

Yeah, exactly. Okay.

Speaker 4 [48:30]

How do you avoid introducing bias?

Speaker 1 [48:33]

think this is from a previous talk actually it's kind of relevant but it says it was two hours ago so someone was really preemptive and got in that early

Speaker 4 [48:45]

You got me. They say which issues do women face when entering and working in tech and how does PyLady help to address them? Who wants to answer?

Speaker 1 [48:45]

or you

Speaker 2 [49:02]

Do you want to mix it up?

Speaker 3 [49:04]

You start.

Speaker 2 [49:05]

So one thing that I see is that a lot of women do a career change So many of them didn't study IT, but they do a bootcamp many of them come from science I personally have a science background I learned programming on the side like over a couple of years and then slowly got into tech so I know the challenge as well that people face who transition from science to data science, for example, and And so I can give good expertise on that and then we also have other people in the group, in the organizer group, who also did a career change, who can also assist with giving guidance on how to break into tech.

Speaker 4 [49:49]

Another good question here. Thank you. Is it possible to make donations to PyLadies? How does it work? If it has a company we could support with sponsorship. I think this is the first in each chapter how this works and I think it's something really we have to think more about. In PyLadies Munich we do run as association for the community local community of developers in Munich and and you can sponsor us directly through this association. But I know that other chapters do not have that in place, but I think it's something maybe we can consider, how can we, you know, be getting better organized in terms of finance so we can actually run independently. But I do believe that if you want to reach one of these organizers in your seat, they will also tell you how you can contribute. Maybe you can sponsor a meetup, as it says, maybe you can, you know, give prizes. We also love to give back to the community, and I think those are the ways, if you have anything to add.

Speaker 1 [50:58]

Yeah, I mean, for Berlin, we're not handling money per se. So for us, it's great if you would sponsor us by paying for the thing directly. One thing that we've been asking for for a long time is childcare. So we would love to have more events where we have childcare available, but this is, of course, a service that has to be paid for because it needs to be professionals. So we would really appreciate anyone who can come to us now. We start to do it in person. and can pay this directly. Another thing that we would love to have is captions and probably not like automated captions because I think we've all seen how sketchy they can be, especially if you're talking about an expert domain, but it would be great also if someone, for example, could kind of give us credits on some sort of platform that offers like live captions. And yeah, like I say, for us, handling money is kind of an overhead we don't really want to deal with, but.

Speaker 4 [51:58]

But we do have associations that can help us, that can be donated from those associations. But I would say if you want to support one chapter in particular, ask the organisers how you can support, because then they can align with what your company or you can contribute. There is another question here, how to start a PyLadies group in a new country? This is a good question. I think you can learn a lot from other chapters and we do, I would recommend you to enter in the Slack and try to read materials about it. And if you have any questions, in particular for Pilates Munich, Pilates Berlin actually helped us a lot. They walked us through how to start the chapter. There is another here, maybe I'll ask it to someone else.

Speaker 1 [52:50]

I've got them up now as well

Speaker 4 [52:52]

Good. You can also say it.

Speaker 1 [52:55]

I think the most voted one is, I do not identify as a woman, nor am I part of an unrepresented minority, but I would like to be an ally. What can I do to be a better ally? I think we have mentioned some points, but maybe you want to add to it. Maren, do you want to kick off?

Speaker 2 [53:13]

Yeah, so as I said, first of all, it's very important to listen and to ask what kind of support is needed. That's very important. And then also, as I mentioned, if you can teach something, that's also always great. Within High Ladies Berlin, we haven't decided yet whether men can be organizers. We need to have a discussion about this. So yeah, basically if you can support us in any way in like running events, promoting women, like yeah, any way that complies with the code of conduct is great.

Speaker 3 [53:53]

Sometimes it's also the technical backbone, basically, that's something I think of right now. If we want to have the hybrid events, it will stay somehow in the tech world or in the Zoom and YouTube channel world. And there's always some work to do as well to cover this. We haven't talked about it yet. That's why it came to my mind.

Speaker 1 [54:20]

How to get more women to apply in the first place when there are only male applicants which to be honest I'm a little bit hard to believe but okay, let's say there are only male applicants and how can we hire women at all? What experiences do you have in this maybe Ellen you have some thoughts?

Speaker 5 [54:38]

Yeah, that's something actually I've heard more often already, that it's really, yeah, that there are many male applicants or not that many female applicants and that, of course, it's then difficult to find a balance. and to be honest, I think that's part of a way bigger discussion that probably starts way before members can join PyLadies chapters and that also has many other factors that probably many other people know a lot more about than I do. But for example, maybe one example I can mention that's actually, I think, quite a cool example. I know in Karlsruhe, and there are probably many other initiatives, there's also some programming for girls initiatives, and i know this probably won't help companies who are looking to hire someone tomorrow but yeah so my answer is i i don't have the answer to that that's a difficult problem we have and that we can't um solve immediately but i do think it is important um like what you also mentioned earlier many women actually have this career switch or they do like boot camps and that we have this network also with workshops and guidance and mentoring and also for women to have this network and to see that there are other women maybe in similar positions that they can talk to that they know how to get there yeah i wanted to say something else but i forgot so i will pass it on

Speaker 4 [56:05]

Yeah, but I also think avoiding bias, even in the sense of to understand that we all have bias ourselves because we live in some bubble somehow. So trying to get away and listen to other people, as you said, I think is very important to address things in a more general way if you really want to reach a higher, more...

Speaker 3 [56:27]

Yeah, sometimes it's also small things that trigger me if I see a job description and they actually talk in the mail version the whole time.

Speaker 4 [56:37]

Actually, I saw like a job description that's like, okay, there was a, they asked my help to fix a job description and there was like, we have free beers. We can have games. And I was like, oh my God, there are so many things that have made me think who wrote that. And there was a, I have nothing against Star Wars, but there was a Star Wars kind of a welcoming the image and I'm not so sure we should not be in this kind of square thing.

Speaker 3 [57:10]

It's quite an OD target group. Yeah.

Speaker 4 [57:12]

Just because you're in tech does not mean this kind. So be more general and be more mindful. I think it really helps. And not only hiring, because I see a lot of companies, they do hire, but then immediately after two months, the person quits, or after three months, why they are not keeping there. And I don't see this reflection of keeping the person or trying to give opportunities inside the company. So somehow they can't enter, but they leave it because if the environment is not good they they don't feel like staying and it's understandable part of your day you you are at work yeah

Speaker 3 [57:52]

Also, take care about the general tone or vibe within the team, that this is welcoming for everybody. This is also important after somebody actually got in.

Speaker 2 [58:06]

Yeah, and I would also like to add to that, that it's important to hire more junior women, especially because, as we said, like many women do a career switch and they're really motivated and eager to learn and like be a good employee. But I find that often they are not even given the chance because many companies say like, oh, we don't want to hire junior people. I think that's a big issue. so yeah I can only advise hire junior women and then train them well and also listen to their feedback because as you said if women don't feel welcome they leave quickly

Speaker 1 [58:44]

quickly. And pay them.

Speaker 2 [58:46]

Yeah, and pay them well.

Speaker 1 [58:48]

So unfortunately we are running out of time and I can see a bunch of really interesting, great questions. So I'm really sorry, but you're gonna have to come talk to us in person at the stand and ask those in person.

Speaker 4 [58:59]

person we are friendly we are friendly yeah

Speaker 1 [59:02]

Yeah, yeah, we're friendly, we're friendly. It feels so removed to sit on the stage like this, so it would be much more comfortable if you come speak to us in person. But just maybe to wrap up, I think what we're trying to portray to you is that with our community, we are really trying to dig deep into how we can be more inclusive and how we can encourage more folks to join this wonderful Python community that we're all part of. We are looking for support in various ways that we've listed and you can reach out to us if you have some more if you're sat there and you don't have a chapter near you we do there are a lot of remote options i did see one of the questions was is there remote pile ladies there is a specific remote pile ladies but also a lot of ours are being streamed so you can also join them remotely um and also just be mindful of the space that you're taking up not just as whatever gender you're identifying with but also of the other privileges that you may be having and how you can actually leverage those to support other folks in the community so we can all improve this community environment for everybody so i would like to say thank you to ellen to marin to laisha and to haika i would like to say thank you to everybody here everybody that's online that has joined our session today and we really look forward to continuing this conversation beyond this conference, beyond this year, and it's just going to be keep on going. So thank you.