Anything NPM – Girl Code @ Adyen
Post written by: Marijke van den Berge
More pictures at: meetup.com/girlcode
When I career-changed to software/frontend-development in 2019, Girl Code was the first meetup I ever attended (the one at Adidas), and since then, I’ve been a regular at meetups all over the Randstad and especially enjoy the Girl Code meetups.
It’s so nice to learn more about all kinds of (IT) subjects and sharing experiences with other women and it pleases me to contribute a little by writing this blog post.
On 28 November, Adyen was host to the last Girl Code meetup of 2018.
At the entrance Girl Code’s host Zinat Farhang welcomed everyone and took us all the way to the top floor where Miss Girl Code Ineke Scheffers and Adyen’s Floor Disselhorst received us with food and drinks. After unwinding from our work days, having a chat will fellow Girl Coders and enjoying pizzas, it was time to officially kick-off the evening.
Ineke started with a word of welcome, an intro to Girl Code and shared a cringeworthy experience she had just had that day. While part of a hiring committee conducting a job interview, she was completely ignored by the male interviewee. Girl Code meetups are a great way to be able to share these experiences with fellow women and feel supported!
Martine de Visscher, VP of Product Mid-Market at Adyen, continued by introducing Adyen and explaining that 30% of the employees are women and the company is actively working on diversity and getting more women in. If the name Adyen doesn’t ring a bell, you’ve probably all used the company’s services without realizing it. Adyen’s software makes payments happen, wherever you are and whatever payment method you are using. Sometimes in life you might think ‘what if I could start all over again?’ At least, I think that sometimes. So, I liked hearing that that question actually formed the basis of Adyen! Adyen builds everything in house by its own people, no rules, just one: they maintain a ‘no-blush-policy’; if you start blushing you know you are doing something wrong!
After hearing from the two organizers it was time for the girl coders to share their experiences with NPM.
First up was ‘Create and Deploy an NPM Package’ by Mirellys Arteta Davila who works as an iOS engineer/ full stack developer at ANWB.
She explained us how NPM stands for Node Package Manager and is like a huge software library for everything JavaScript. From 2010, one year after node was released, NPM was already widespread over the planet. It creates solutions to problems. NPM consists of a command line client, also called NPM, and the registry, an online database of packages. The registry is accessed via the client, and the available packages can be browsed and searched via the NPM website. In a live coding demo, she walked us through the process of sharing code on NPM through the command line. First you need an NPM-account, login and create your package on your computer. Then the NPM init command runs you through some questions that turn magically into a package.json-file. The final step is actually publishing the package and naming it! Thanks to Mirellys we now know NPM is a great way to share your code with the open source community, reuse code from others, and that NPM makes it easier to use different versions of code.
Follow Mirellys here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/syllerim
https://twitter.com/syllerim
Then Adyen’s own Kat Chilton took the microphone to dive into ‘Enterprise Level NPM Security (and other dependency management tools)’
Had Mirellys just made NPM seem so nice, useful and communal, Kat scared us a little by talking about the dangers of NPM. As the principal author of a tool adyen developed internally, she is a veteran who has been in the trenches and knows how to guard Adyen from potential threats. She started off by stressing the importance of JavaScript and how with any sort of development you’re going to use in your career, you’re probably going to have to touch JavaScript. To say that NPM is important to the JS-world, as the biggest open source registry, that last June added their millionth package, is an understatement. The size of the NPM registry has about tripled in one year!
But there is risk involved. As Ani DiFranco says, every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.
NPM is potentially the scene of a crime!
NPM installs a tree of dependencies. That is, every package installed gets its own set of dependencies. That means loads of potential danger! She gives us some examples of NPM gone wrong like how bitcoins got robbed and explains us that massive dependency trees make you and everyone that uses your product vulnerable. She shows how easy it is to inject malware into an NPM patch and how you can just sit back and relax while the infection spreads. She further demonstrates her point by showing one dependency node which grows and grows until we see a screen full of tiny dependency dots. Summarizing, NPM makes work easier, but can make it very unsafe easily!
Fortunately, there are some steps you can take to be a responsible NPM-user. Use smaller libraries with fewer dependencies, be critical, take the time to look; and, let the right one in! At the NPM-database you can see a list of dependencies of the package you want to install, but unfortunately you can’t see the dependencies of those dependencies. So best thing to do is not to jump immediately on any new js-libary bandwagon we see. It isn’t secure! So, what should you look at while investigating packages? Kat talked us through what we should pay attention to while browsing for packages. Check how old it is, how mature is the latest update? Is there a read-me? Are there any known vulnerabilities in the library? Does it have a SPDX compliant license? Is it free for commercial use? Is there a link to source code? And, if you’re always prone to update as soon as a new update comes out, think again. To avoid being a victim of a zero-day exploit attack, don’t grab updates immediately fresh off the presses. If you update as soon as it comes out, you could be victim of a vulnerability that we don’t know exists yet. She ended her whirlwind talk by advising us to stand on the shoulders of giants and to check out the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) and to never put our full trust in NPM as, after all, they’re in the business to make money.
Follow Kat here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katchilton/
Check out her slides:
https://slides.com/eightarmcode/deck#/
And read her blogpost about Skantek (NPM security project):
https://www.adyen.com/blog/skantek-securing-nodejs-at-adyen
The last presentation of the evening was ‘Working with NPM Packages in Monorepos’ by Admira Husić, Fullstack engineer at Harver.
Like the previous talks, this one introduced me to new concepts. If you had any misconceptions on working with monorepos (a software development strategy where code for many projects are stored in the same repository) she debunks them one by one. On her first day at Harver she was assigned a buddy who told her to clone a repository to set up her work environment, that was it! She was confused; how do so many developers work on one repository?! But working for Harver she slowly learned the perks of this strategy.
To work with different teams on a monorepo means that we have separate packages that separate teams are working on, but they are stored in one git repository. When you can use code in a monorepo for several applications you don’t have to adjust every single project (like when all applications would have their own repo), but it works directly for all applications which means they are all up to date continuously.
She explained that there are tools to manage your multiple packages like lerna and ended her presentation using a magical forest and magical creatures to show how it all works.
Follow Admira Husić here:
http://linkedin.com/in/admira-husic
This last GirlCode Meetup of 2019 gave me lots of new insights and the opportunity to catch up with fellow Girl Coders.
As Ineke is taking a well-deserved break a new meetup isn’t planned yet but be sure to keep an eye on meetup.com/girlcode for when the next one will be announced. She and all other contributors wish you a splendid 2020 with lots of Girl Coding Power!
For this meetup the Girl Code team was formed by:
Ineke Scheffers – Organizer and host https://www.linkedin.com/in/ineke-scheffers/
Marijke van den Berge – Blogger https://www.linkedin.com/in/marijkevdb/
Zinat Farhang – Host https://www.linkedin.com/in/zinatfarhang
Dominique Kersten – Host / Photographer https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominiquekersten
Building a number guessing game – Girl Code at Codam
The following blogpost was written by Johanne Anderson and originally posted here.
On the 18th of September, some 30 Girl Coders met up for the quarterly Girl Code Meetup, this time hosted at Codam.
The first challenge of the evening being finding the front door. However, once the front door was located, a bowl of hot tomato soup with bread and good conversation awaited. As a meetup regular, I cannot say how nice it was to get something other than pizza for once. It was a really nice touch.
After eating one too many pieces of bread with hummus, we headed into the auditorium where Ineke introduced Girl Code.
Once Ineke had done the official word of welcome, Michèle of Codam took over. She explained how she had gone from a general social sciences graduate to completing a boot camp and now working as a developer at Codam. She also introduced Codam, which is the first full-on coding school in Amsterdam. The curriculum is 3.5 years with 2 internships, before the release you into the wild. However, it is about there the resemblance with normal schooling ends. At Codam there are no teachers, no lectures and no books, only peer learning.
So true to Codam’s teaching philosophy, we got a short introduction to the concepts before we were led into the “clusters”. In the clusters, rows of iMacs awaited us along with a bunch of girls from Codam ready to assist.
The assignment was a small number guessing game, prompting the user to guess a randomly generated number. The exercise was a nice introduction to the basics of programming and for getting familiar with Ruby syntax. We got to try both control flow, reading input from the user and conditionals.
To make it even easier to get started, we used the website repl.it/languages/ruby, where you can create and run Ruby scripts in the browser.
Since there were girls of all skill levels, some programmed for the first time whilst others finished in no time. Fortunately, there was room for both types of programmers, with super helpful tutors to guide the first-timers and extra challenges for the experienced programmers.
One of the main takeaways for me was Michèle’s tip about writing out all the steps of the program before starting. It is a good reminder to take a step back and actually figure out what you are building before you dive in.
We got about an hour and a half to program, after which we rounded off the evening with a final word of thank you. Then for those who wanted to hang out and chat, there were drinks, stroopwafels and nuts. All in all, a really enjoyable evening in good company.
So thank you very much to Ineke for making this a nice evening happen and thank you to Michèle and the awesome team of helpers at Codam. Also, thank you to Tiffany for hosting and Marta for taking pictures 🤗
Now we just have to wait for the next one, which will be on “Anything NPM” on November 27th at Adyen. If you want to do a talk about ‘anything NPM’, or want to help out as a host or blogger, see the event for more information to sign up!
Thank you for reading and maybe I’ll see you at the next Girl Code meetup!
PS. My solution to the exercise can be found here, should you want to compare.
The feedback form and the official solution can be found through this link.
This blogpost was written by Johanne Anderson and originally posted here.
Career Day: (Wo)men Jobs – Girl Code at ANWB
Your grandma asking: “Say whut?! You are a software developer? Isn’t that something for guys?” Or a stakeholder (albeit pleasantly) surprised you are the developer of the team. It’s what you (sometimes positively, sometimes neutrally, sometimes even negatively) deal with in a job, we of course perceive as not dependent on a gender, but what some people or even society still often perceives as a men’s job.
We as developers aren’t alone in these experiences. What about pilots, surgeons, firefighters (in Dutch the most used word even is: brandweermannen, firefightmen), garbage men, car mechanics, CEOs, entrepeneurs etc.? (Laughing out loud when typing these, ’cause why would any of these jobs be a men’s job in the first place?)
So I thought it would be a fun outing to hear from other women in (wo)men jobs about their jobs. Have a little career day. I mean, we love to learn new things: so who knows when we want to switch careers again…. (Please don’t! We need you in this particular gendergap, ha!)
After a short intro about Girl Code, Eva Marie Beij (CEO Wegenwacht – Roadside Assistance) and Jennifer Ingenbleck (working ANWB’s most iconic job: roadside assistant) kicked the night off, Anouk Mentink talked about the challenges she faced becoming a firefighter and about the rewards her job brings her. Then it was time for Kim Berkhuizen who started out as a beer brewer and went beyond getting her Masters in it and became a process technologist big shot at Heineken. We also had a speaker who just spoke at the UN and came all the way from America: Gloria Kimbwala who spoke in name of us Girl Coders about being a programmer (and founder of Shule) and the night was closed off by Yosine Delgado MSc. talking about her job as a doctor and her place at the surgery department.
Before we go to the recap of the night written by Girl Coder (at the ANWB) Sabine van der Eijk, I want to sincerely thank all of the speakers again (I heard you inspired many that night!), all attendees for making another Girl Code an absolute success and the ANWB and hosts (my colleagues) who helped me out with the organization and the night: Tissaine Marshall, Katja Hollaar, Zhen Hu, Debbie Mijnsbergen, Sabine van der Eijk and Hanny Verkerk!
Photo’s by Katja of the event can be found here.
Next Girl Code will be all about ‘Game Development’ at Guerrilla Games. If you want to make a chance(!) on a spot don’t think twice and claim a spot on the waitlist!
Recap by Sabine van der Eijk, Front End developer at ANWB, original post can be found here:
Being a woman in a mainly male dominated working fields 🙋🏻♀️
Latest Girl Code Career Meetup at ANWB (Dutch Roadside Assistance Association) was all about speaker’s experiences being a woman in a mainly male dominated working fields. The talks referred to life changing moments and choosing to work in the expertise field you prefer. The speakers worked in various disciplines: a beer brewer, a surgeon, a roadside assistance guard, a CEO, a firefighter and a programmer. They all told their own stories about switching careers several times to finally land in a job they love. Some speakers followed their dreams, that were clear goals from their childhood they wanted to achieve.
I really admired the speakers who are working as a firefighter, beer supplier and roadside assistance guard. These jobs include heavy lifting, and I would say are physically challenging day in day out. They were, rightfully, proud in being not that different from their male colleagues. But also they explained that when there’s a moment you can’t keep up with the heavy physical part of that job it’s time to move on. Beer supplier Kim Berkhuizen switched to being a Beer processing technologist, after getting a beer brewing degree in Schotland. This job is still in line with her passion for beer and is less physical labor than carrying beer barrels around!
I took home that it’s important to follow your passion because that’s probably what you’re best in. Pursuing that goal, doing what you like to do, makes that there’s a place for you. I belief that if you honestly feel that what you’re doing now excites you, you’ll do a more than ok job! This is what will surprise everyone working with you in the field. And that’s not just caused by you being the only woman there. It’s that you’re making a difference in living your dream and you’ll feel happy doing that day in day out. That spirit of joy is very contagious for fellow workers around you.
This meetup evening there were absolutely some mentions on differences between men and women on the job. There was a personal story on how male-colleagues can’t resist to making comments to women working on the same level as them. Fun thing was that it was mentioned as it is, a man making a distinction. The speaker was already far past him on many levels at that point. Sharing anecdotes like these help giving everyone a better understanding and giving situations like these the amount of attention they deserve. Just let it exist but don’t take it home ;-)
I believe that the takeaway message was for you to believe in whatever you want to achieve. We had a lovely evening, with good foods arranged but the ANWB: noodles and sushi after the talks. Experiences were exchanged between women from various professions. Among the Girl Code speakers there were a Firefighter, a Brewer, a Surgeon, a Software Engineer, a CEO and our finest: A Roadside Assistance caregiver. Thank you for sharing your experience!
Meet our 900th Girl Coder: Julia!
It’s time to celebrate our Girl Coders again with putting our 900th(!) member in the spotlights! And we are very honoured it was Julia who pushed the ‘join’-button late May, ’cause she’s got a pretty awesome story:
What was your path in becoming a programmer?
I always had some kind of interest in technology but I used to follow my strong passion for music for most of my life and therefore studied musicology (along with media studies and art history) and worked for MTV for a while. I noticed though that I got mostly interested in the technical aspects of my work and how the program we used worked and could be improved. After finishing my bachelor thesis on music videos I was sure I wanted to go in a different direction and started to teach myself some HTML and CSS to build very basic websites. I then went on to also learn some Ruby but quickly realised that in this way I wouldn’t be able to learn as fast as I wanted to. Also, I was very quickly convinced that I wanted to find a job as a developer since I got so passionate about coding that I forgot to eat when I was busy with it. That’s why I decided to do the 10 week Codaisseur full stack web development academy where I learned everything I needed to know to be a junior web developer.
Why did you join Girl Code?
I want to meet more people that love coding as much as I do and I am very interested in how other women feel about entering this amazing world. Also, I would love to have some chats about frameworks and languages other developers use to find more inspiration about what I want to learn next. So all in all I just would love to be part of a community of likeminded people.
What are you most proud of?
I remember that last year July I went to a BBQ of an IT student association. I tried to have some talks about coding but noticed quickly that I didn’t understand so much. Now less than a year later I am able to build my own full stack web applications and feel confident to master nerdy talks. Besides that I also managed to be able to talk pretty good Dutch within less than a year. So I guess what I am proud of is how fast I was able to learn new things and also how much of it was just learning by doing and not being afraid of it, just going for it.
What kind of job are you looking for?
For me the most amazing thing would be finding a possibility to combine my passion for music and for coding. I would love to work for a company like Spotify or last.fm for example. So that’s kind of a dream of mine but for now I want to mainly find a company where I can keep developing my skills and build something that is a positive change in the world.
Do you have advice for aspiring Girl Coders?
Just go for anything that you feel some kind of passion for. And never compare yourself to others but only to yourself a couple of months ago, then you will always be really proud of all the things you have already learned and achieved.
So, what are you waiting for?! Hire this builds-Hangman-games-for-fun awesome developer before someone else snatches her before you!
Coding Accessibility – Girl Code at Incentro
It took a while but here it is. The recap of our ‘Coding Accessibility’-meetup at Incentro a few weeks ago! And lucky me, while I was finding the time to write a proper blogpost about one of the most inspiring Girl Codes ’til now, our speaker and host Elisabeth Boldewijn wrote one that absolutely captures the awesomeness of the whole night, so I won’t try to match it, but just share it here! But before I copy-paste below I would like to thank all of our speakers so much. The night was buzzing with passion, inspiration and last but not least courage of all our speakers to also talk about their own physical challenges in life. It emphasised how these ‘disabilities’ are not always visible and why as Eva Westerhoff eloquently put: “accessibility is for everyone” and if you don’t experience a disability now “at one point in life, all of us will experience ‘disability'”, like Dr. Cara Antoine told us during her talk. During the drinks after it turned out all of the attendees were very much inspired to do better on the accessibility front of coding and a few of them were already activists on the matter. It was so rewarding to organise this meetup and it’s inspiring outcome, partly because it was a topic high on my personal wish list since I’m battling a chronic illness myself which does causes the world to be less accessible to me on a daily basis. We are very proud we could shine a light on this topic from three different sides: Elisabeth about how coding can make a great career accessible while being chronically ill, Eva about why building accessibility or rather usability in your software and products is important to everyone and Dr. Cara Antoine accompanied by Lisanne Brons how software, in this case AI, can make the physical world more accessible to all! And now it’s finally time for Elisabeth’s recap of the night. Below her post you will find the pics and the slides!
GirlCode Accessibility meetup
– by Elisabeth Boldewijn
Wednesday evening I held my first meetup ever and about a quite intimate topic, accessibility. Not only did we learn more about accessibility within the services and products we use, but there were some personal stories shared which explained why some of us are so passionate about this topic and do our best to be heard and include those who are challenged in life.
After my friend & colleague Hajar Mokhtafa gave us a wonderful introduction about our company. It was my turn and I held my talk on how fibromyalgia changed my life and the challenges I faced at finding a job when you’re not only a starting junior developer, but not confident at all in your capabilities with a body you cannot trust.
I embarked on my journey to become a web developer after a heart surgery. As medication didn’t work for me, I opted for the surgery. It was supposed to make my life more manageable, but unfortunately it left me in a much worse state. (it had triggered my current condition, but only after 9 months would I find out what it was and get it confirmed by a doctor.)
As physical work was impossible for me to do even on heavy painkillers, I set my mind to really go for it and find a place to learn web development at a faster pace. I got lucky and got the opportunity to learn at the NYCDA and after finishing the course successfully I finally wound up at incentro (Rotterdam).
This to wasn’t without the help of GirlCode founder Ineke Scheffers. She reached out to one of my colleagues and within a few days I had found a place to work (prior to this it had taken me months). We were classmates at the nycda and after we got a bit personal in our introductions, she had taken me along to the GirlCode meetups. I was amazed at all the women I’d meet and their talks, so I kept going and I really felt and still feel like I am part of a great community. So after I felt I had enough courage to get on that stage I decided to host a GirlCode myself at incentro.
Our second speaker Eva Westerhoff (helps organisations improve their accessibility & is currently working at ING) made it very clear how much we actually fail, when we think something is ‘accessible’ when it’s made for the wrong target group. Everyone BUT the ‘disabled’ people it was meant for.
She also had a very solid point, saying
I don’t feel disabled, it’s the environment that makes it that way.
If you think about it, it makes compleet sense! Don’t we all feel much more at ease at a place where we know our way around, and managing everything ourselves without the help of others?
If we do a better job at making sure our products & services ARE accessible, then more people can feel that way. Don’t wait until it has become a ‘requirement’, try to always include accessibility within your designs. And if you want to do it the right way. Invite people who you think will benefit from this new feature, or design and ask THEM.
- Does this make your life easier?
- Would you use this product/service in it’s current state?
- How can I improve my product to meet your needs?
Aside of the fact that a LOT of people are missing out in using the services offered, you make then feel excluded. Perhaps they even think they’re not important enough, and that would be a shame.
Eva also shared some links with us, so please check them out!
- Tips for developers
- Different disabilities and what to do & not do
- Stories of multiply accessibility needs
Our third and last speakers were Dr. Cara Antoine & Lisanne Brons from Microsoft the Netherlands. They also had a personal story to share and told us how the Microsoft vision plays a role in accessibility.
At one point in life, all of us will experience ‘disability’
I found that such a powerful thing to hear, and fully agree! With that mindset you have a completely different view on the things you use, design, perhaps even on the world.
Cara also gave a very simple example when mentioning that a lot of disabilities are ‘invisible’. If those in the audience wearing glasses would take them off for the rest of the presentation. Those people would not see very well, but how many people are wearing contact lenses? You have no clue, but they also count as ‘disabled’.
So if you develop your products with future you in mind who may the same, or may be disabled in one way or another, you are thinking ahead and including those people.
Empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more
Lisanne told us how machine learning (a way of achieving AI) is not much different from how children learn. They pick up information eventually start speaking and when making mistakes we correct them. We also cheer them on when they get it right.
She also gave a demo of one of their apps SeeingAI. With this app you take a picture and it will verbally explain what is on the picture. It was very cool to see this, but what got me and a colleague even more excited was the app where you can become a buddy for someone who’s visually impaired (I forgot the name). If you cannot see something clearly, you can call someone, who will see what you’re seeing, and tell you what to pick or which way to go. I believe this app wasn’t available yet in The Netherlands, only in USA.
Other amazing app mentioned were:
microsoft translator, this can translate from one language to another. So if you’re speaking in Spanish, but I cannot understand it, it will translate to a language I do understand making it possible to communicate with far more people than before.
Stream, in this video platform it is possible to:
- Search for text or spoken words within videos
- Enhance accessibility for everyone with closed captioning
- See all speakers and jump ahead to where they appear in your video
- Play your video while viewing or searching its transcript
- Discover a variety of content without relying on metadata
As a developer who learn a lot through videos. I find myself often searching for something I’ve seen or heard in a video. If the stream features were used on youtube as well, my life would be so much easier!
Also a shout out to the catering for this evening. The food was deliciousss! Thank you very much!
This summary of the evening turned out to be quite a long post, but I really wanted to share how much I appreciated hosting this event, having such wonderful speakers and truly feeling blessed by those around me!
I hope to continue seeing more powerful women making a change in this world for the better. If ever you see a GirlCode meetup, don’t hesitate! They’re always a lot of fun, and you always leave with a bit more knowledge.
Thank you for reading.
Until next time
Original post by Elisabeth Boldewijn can be found here.
The next meetup is being organised as we speak! Keep an eye on our Meetup page to RSVP once it’s up!
Meet our 800th Girl Coder: Zinat!
As you’re used from us, we’re just in time to introduce to you our 800th Girl Coder before our 900th will press the ‘join Girl Code’-button, oops.
Zinat joined us at the beginning of March and is such an inspiring Girl Coder: we still feel it’s better late than never to make this post! Zinat can eat pasta for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day and in between the pasta eating she is a software engineer at CGI and specializes in the field of GIS.
Why did you join Girl Code?
I joined Girl Code to meet more women in the IT field. I think it’s important to get to know different people, especially people who enjoy coding and want to learn more from each other. I have just attended one Girl Code meetup and it was already so inspiring for me. Talking to people with the same passion as me or people who want to start their way in coding gives me energy. I studied GIS and my interest in coding led me to work as a software engineer. I know that there is a lot to learn and a lot to share… That’s also a good reason to be a member of Girl Code.
GIS? Could you tell us more about it?
GIS is the study of geoinformatics. Examples of everyday uses of GIS include any kind of navigation, GPS or even Google maps. I studied GIS because of my passion for maps and mathematics.
What does your workday look like at CGI?
My daily schedule is based on Scrum planning. I mostly work in a team of five or six people in sprints of three weeks. Each day starts with a standup and sharing the tasks for that day.
You mentioned you liked to be a member of Girl Code to learn. What do you think you’ll learn at our meetups?
Girl Code is a good opportunity for me to keep up with many developers from different backgrounds, learn from each of them, visit many real-life projects and discuss their techniques. It helps me have a better understanding of them and maybe consider those methods in my own work.
You also mention, there’s lots to share. What would you share at Girl Code?
What I can share with Girl Code is my experience as a junior developer. It is nice to meet and help people who want to start their career as a software engineer or developer. Each one of us has a different story but sharing our individual experiences might help one person to find their way in coding. We all benefit by supporting each other.
Hell yes, that’s exactly what we want Girl Code to be an to offer, as Zinat puts very nicely: “We all benefit by supporting each other.” Thanks Zinat for joining us and being a inspiring and valuable member of our community! If you’d like to get in contact with Zinat, join us at our meetups or contact her on LinkedIn. On to the 900th!
PS Our next meetup is about accessibility, RSVP here to join us! If you built an app, website or piece of software paying extra attention to accessibility. Or built an app, website or piece of software making the physical world more accessible for those for whom it isn’t: Apply for our open speaker spot now!
CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap – Girl Code screening at Accenture
Since it came out in 2015 this screening was on top of our wish list for Girl Code! And Lisa from Accenture made the dream come true! Last Monday we screened the documentary ‘CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap’ with Accenture at their office. MOVIENIGHT!!!1!!1!
It was a great film. And if you know people who don’t really see the problem or are blind for the sexism that takes place in the developer’s world: show them this film. It will save you a lot of explaining!
We started off the night with some drinks and pizza and after watching the movie we discussed some themes around this topic. Like: Will a quota help? Should we retrain women to code within businesses? And did you experience the sexism which was showed in this movie? You can imagine this was a seriously interesting discussion. Thanks Lisa and Accenture for making this screening possible!
PS You can now join us for our next meetup about accessibility June 13 at Incentro!
PS2 You can also apply for the open speaker spot! See our meetup event page for details how to.
Developers Testing – Girl Code @ bloomon
Past 21st of March was the date that goes into history as the first Girl Code of 2018. It was also the first Girl Code I, Ineke, had to miss because of an acute inflammation in my stomach and so the first Girl Code without a real blogpost, ha. Wouldn’t want you to miss out on the photos and the slides, so here they are!
Topic
Sure, the testing of your projects is generally done by testers. And that’s a good thing: testing your project shouldn’t depend solely on you as a developer testing your own code! But that doesn’t mean testing your own stuff before you release it to be tested isn’t important. There are more kinds of testing then just user testing alone. Such as functional testing, unit testing and integration testing. Unit testing, for example, also takes care of missing bugs when you build something new that might unintentionally break another part of your code: your tests will save you!
We were welcomed by Teddy at bloomon. As I already code at home with the flowers of bloomon next to my laptop I was really excited this meetup was at their office where we got to see not only their flowers but also their development department up close. Our speakers talked about their approaches to testing. Mariyana’s talk was called ‘UI Testing & Libraries @ bloomon’ and Marie‘s ‘Unit testing using Mocha’.
Slides
PS You can now join us for our next meetup about accessibility June 13 at Incentro!
PS2 You can also apply for the open speaker spot! See our meetup event page for details how to.
Back to the future – Girl Code talks AI @ ING
Another awesome Girl Code meetup has taken place last Wednesday and this time we were welcomed at ING. A new company for us, but not a new hostess. We were lucky enough working with Victoria again. We’ve met her at Booking.com during our ‘The challenges of a (Girl) Coder’-meetup and now she’s kicking ass and empowering women at ING. So, when she called for another meetup at her new office and suggested a topic high on our wish list: we couldn’t possibly refuse. The topic in question was: Artificial Intelligence. Yeahhhh!
This technology will enhance us. So instead of artificial intelligence, I think we’ll augment our intelligence – Ginni Rometty
The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race – Stephen Hawking
AI, a term of which it’s true definition is still debated on, but most of us still have a hope, fear or opinion about. Some people can’t wait for what the future of it will bring, some just hope it won’t be as scary as they envision it to become. This night was all about lifting a corner of the veil covering it by our professional Girl Coders.
The talks
First up was Flavia with her key note titled: Demystifying AI – Robots are coming! During her talk she deconstructed the hype around AI and it’s differences with Machine Learning. It was a very interesting, inspiring and highly amusing talk of 40 minutes, so I will not be giving a summary of her whole talk. If you didn’t attend our meetup last Wednesday, you really should try to keep an eye on her and hear her talk some time about this and other topics yourself! Highly recommended! But one thing she really stressed to us is the importance of a good and complete dataset. ‘Cause your AI will be biased, and it’s predictions no good if the dataset is already biased. So a true challenge for us humans is: to keep making sure the data we feed it is the best and most complete it can be.
After a little breather it was time for Esther’s demo. Esther has been a member of Girl Code since the earliest days and is one of those inspirational people we really wanted on our stage some time. Wednesday was finally that time, ’cause our topic perfectly fits Esther, you know her being a Master of Science in it. During her short demo she showed us how we all, with a little time (like 40 minutes), can set up our first AI using TensorFlow. Check her slides to get on it!
We finished the talks with a panel discussion. Flavia and Esther were joined on stage by Janna (IT Chapter Lead) and Bidisha (IT Manager). They answered all the questions and ideas of our Girl Coders in the audience. And they did so with great passion! We closed the evening by getting to know each other and meeting up with what have become good friends while enjoying some truly delicious snacks and drinks provided by Victoria and her awesome team.
It was another AWESOME night! Thank you all for coming and making this another success as always. You ARE Girl Code :-)
If you want to join us next time, we already announced our next one at bloomon March 21st. RSVP’s will open up in January when we announce the whole program after a little holiday break. So keep an eye on meetup, to make sure you have a spot!
Happy holidays and see you next year!
Meet our 700th Girl Coder: Carla!
Carla and I connected on LinkedIn after our mutual connection Xander tagged me in one of her posts. It was about AI and how it shapes our thinking power. Carla wondered about what will happen if 99% of it is developed only by men.
AI, the topic of our next meetup and a topic we thus have in common. So naturally, I invited Carla to our next meetup and as it turns out she became our 700th Girl Coder! Time to celebrate our community again with a blogpost, this time about: Carla!
Why, besides my invitation, did you want to join our group?
To talk to smart, talented young women who are navigating their career in an extremely male dominated world. How does this influence your behaviour? What do you do to develop your personal leadership? How do you stay true to your own values?
Do you code?
I did program Siebel (a CRM system) for about one week :-). But I had to admit that this wasn’t my talent. I want to support the women whose talent it is to code. In this era of digitalisation we need the voices, the views and the opinions of women coders more them ever! To make sure we won’t get stuck in an era of ‘digital patriarchy’.
From LinkedIn I know you’re a feminine leadership coach. Do tell more about what this entails!
I teach women business leaders how to develop and value their feminine side, so they become more balanced and powerful as leaders. Personal leadership is developed differently in women than it is in men. First of all because a woman’s and a man’s psyche operates differently. They have different inner forces driving their behaviour. In a patriarchal society and business culture it’s the male psyche that is dominant. Women need to learn about their own inner forces if they want to understand themselves and effectively use these forces. Secondly, as we’re all starting to see, the forces in our society act out differently on women than on men. A woman needs to become conscious about the external pressure that is put on her, so she can consciously make decisions. Thirdly, charisma is developed differently. Charisma is like an energy source that we carry with us in our bodies. It’s connected to our life-force. Developed through a grounded sense of self-love, self-esteem and finding joy and safety in one’s own body. Without a healthy, loving relationship with our bodies we experience difficulties connecting to our life-force, intuition and charisma.
Do you have any advice for our (professional and just starting out) Girl Coders in this male dominated field?
My advise to all women working in male dominated fields who want to have impact and shape tomorrows world is:
1. Stay connected to other women, for nourishment, laughter and learning.
2. Invest continuously in your personal development so you become the best version of yourself.
One last random thing you still want to share?
A universal wisdom is that you should treat others in the way that you would like to be treated yourself. Should you ever encounter a boss or a team that doesn’t treat you in this way, get out. There are enough great people out there who would love to work with a smart, talented, hardworking woman like yourself!
Ineke 