Django Girls and Fluid Attacks want more women in IT in Colombia

Contxto – International Women’s Day is just around the corner. But 24 hours is an insufficient amount of time to place the spotlight on the challenges women face such as education and job opportunities.

Fortunately, there are organizations and businesses dedicated to helping women explore STEM careers year round.

One such example is non-profit Django Girls. This community arranges free programming workshops for women, regardless of their age or background, in various parts of Colombia.

And it recently carried out a web design workshop in Medellín, in partnership with Fluid Attacks, a cybersecurity company. In this event 70 women learned how to design a webpage from scratch.

Its overall objective (as are all of Django Girls’ initiatives) is to encourage women to consider a career path in the world of IT.

Django Girls

Since 2017, Django Girls is a non-profit that can be found across various parts of the world. As this organization’s name might suggest, it specializes in Django framework. That, ipso facto makes Python its programming language of preference.

And for a second time, Django Girls in Colombia has partnered up with Fluid Attacks.

This company’s CEO, Vladimir Villa, and in terms of women in IT, he acknowledged something important.

“Despite that at our company we have this [gender] gap that affects all technology organizations, we currently have two women as part of our 70-person ethical hacking team and we’re working to increase this feminine presence,” stated Villa in the release.

So it’s a good start to hear that tech companies like Fluid Attacks, acknowledge they’re lacking in women for its workforce. I genuinely hope this isn’t just lip service and look forward to hearing about more women in its white hat hacking team next year.

Changing the STEM story for women

There’s a predominant narrative that careers requiring hard skills and logic is naturally for dudes. But that’s a misguided line of thought.

More so considering that overall boys and girls perform at similar levels in math and science at an elementary school level discredits that “guys are naturally better at math.”

The real problem lies in that as young girls grow, they assimilate this misconception as a fact. And it may deter them from considering a career in STEM.

However, as more women join IT or other science and math-related fields, it’ll (hopefully) become the norm.

And while the content covered in a brief workshop can’t compare to intensive bootcamps or a degree in engineering, it’s a fantastic start to bring more women into the world of programming.

Related articles: Tech and startups from Colombia!

-ML