Next Tech Fest showcases tech opportunity for women and girls
Packed out event inspires and educates in equal measure
Next Tech Fest was bursting at the seams with female talent and aspiration.
Next Tech Girls is a multi-award-winning social enterprise which holds tech focused events and arranges work experience placements for young women and girls. A majority of the delegates at this year's Next Tech Fest, which took place on Wednesday, were school, college or university students investigating the opportunities tech careers could offer, and the many and varied pathways to them.
The event also served as a reminder of the opportunities available for people a few years into their career, or after career breaks. Lots of the Next Tech Girls community are career switchers and were keen to share their experiences and stories. Some of these featured prominently in a panel on pathways into tech chaired by Director of Next Tech Girls, Emily Hall-Strutt.
Jennifer Okoh decided after ten years in retail banking and time spent home studying for accountancy qualifications whilst taking a career break to care for her young children that she wanted to switch to tech. Why?
"Tech provides you with endless opportunities for growth," she said. "I was in a career [finance] where there is only so far you can go."
Okoh enrolled in a Makers bootcamp for aspiring DevOps engineers and is shortly due to start seeking out her first job.
That time out to have children, along with a pandemic, also prompted Rosie Waite, Software Engineer at Holiday Extras to apply for a job as a software tester which although wasn't quite the engineering job that she wanted, enabled her to get a foot in the door. When the opportunity of an apprentice role at Holiday Extras came up, she grabbed it.
Work experience proves important
Libbie Martin, Senior Tech Ops Analyst at Sky also took an apprenticeship route.
"I went into an apprenticeship post-16 and I'd done computer science and IT at school and knew it was what I wanted to do. We did a Fujitsu scheme where we had to make something for an IoT and we had to do a presentation to Fujitsu bosses and from there I knew what I wanted to do."
The panel discussed the importance of bootcamps which are intensive and rigorous but also provide a ready-made community for boot campers to share questions and knowledge and start to build the contacts for a professional network.
Kam O'Donnell, Head of Software Delivery at Mobilize Financial Services did a maths degree at university but picked up some all-important work experience on a placement year in industry.
"For me the placement year was brilliant for me, learning how to go to work in a regular job and see how I could make a difference with the skills I already had was really beneficial for me. When I graduated, I went straight into work for an engineering company. "
The panel demonstrated perfectly the variety of routes into a successful technology career, some of them involving university and some not. Libbie Martin certainly noticed that some of her friends who took the university route struggled to get the kind of jobs that they were applying for afterwards, whereas her two-year apprenticeship with Sky had led to a job offer for her at the ripe old age of 18. By the time her friends were graduating, Martin was already three years into her career.
Next Tech Fest also offered coding workshops, advice on personal branding, workshops on negotiating and sessions on people-centred tech and creative tech.
Understanding the breadth of what it means to be a founder
A second expert panel took a different perspective, with four entrepreneurs explaining what led them to become entrepreneurs and build their own tech and their own ventures.
For some the driver is very personal. This was the case for Pamela Aculey, Founder and CEO of Just Like Me Books and Mixd Reality.
"We are the first interactive and inclusive story books where we use augmented reality technology to bring our stories to life. My eldest son is autistic and when he had his diagnosis was non-speaking and we were trying to find ways of getting him to engage in stories. We realised his hook was technology and that we needed to change the landscape of learning.
"We work with publishers, authors and brands who want to have immersive storytelling and use augmented reality tech to change that learning landscape and give stories that normally go untold a voice. "
Another panellist had a very different journey into entrepreneurship. Bianca Rangecroft, Founder and CEO of Whering explains what took her from Goldman Sachs to building a wardrobe management and styling app.
"I was looking at the senior people where I worked and wondering if that was what my life was going to be like. I asked myself what I was passionate about that wasn't just making rich people richer."
There's a lot of pressure on people (and let's face it, more on women) working in corporate finance to look polished and stylishly dressed in client meetings, and Rangecroft established that lots of her colleagues were running spreadsheets and macros to plan their wardrobes. At which point she started focus grouping from her flat. About a hundred focus groups later:
"I was confident that I'd found a market fit and I was the right person to build out a solution."
So confident that she was prepared to gamble four and a half years of savings on it and start Whering.
Layla Hosseini-Gerami, Co-Founder and CDSO of Ignota Labs also didn't fancy becoming a cog in a corporate wheel after the freedom she'd grown used to whilst working on her PhD trying to understand why drugs have such a high failure rate in testing.
"I got a message on LinkedIn from my now co-founder Jordan asking if I fancied taking a role as their machine learning lead. Jordan has lots of experience in drug discovery, my other co-founder Sam has a lot of commercial experience and I was the third piece of the puzzle with tech expertise."
Some simply grew tired of waiting for a seat at the executive table so decided to build their own instead. Sam Gaskell, Founder and Director of DataFit explained what led her to start up her own venture.
"I've worked since the age of 18 in lots of data roles, worked with multiple different brands and I just got sick of it. Promotions came up but they didn't lead anywhere and I've always been entrepreneurial. I was also tired of being the only female on my team. I set up DataFit two-and-a-half years ago."
Fair Funding - or not
The panel shared some war stories on funding. All acknowledged that it's been a tough climate for venture capital, and female founders still account for a vanishingly tiny slice of overall funding.
"It was so intimidating," Hosseini-Gerami said. "You go into boardrooms and face a wall of white guys essentially saying ‘impress us.' They asked some really weird questions like ‘How many times have you had to hustle or got laughed out of a room?' One of them asked us to share the worst thing about our co-founders. It's like public humiliation."
"It can feel very demotivating but you have to kiss a lot of frogs."
Pamela Aculey spoke of her frustration that women, particularly women of colour do face more challenges with fundraising but also clearly refuses to waste time on things she knows won't change – at least not any time soon.
"The landscape isn't changing as fast as I want it to so how I can I get where I want to be? For me it's collaboration. Every time I got knocked back I'd consider it a favour because I need to find a person who understands what we're trying to achieve. I've had bizarre and beautiful collaborations with people I never thought I'd meet and they've been the catalyst I've needed to propel the business."
Bianca Rangecroft closed the discussion with some words of advice for budding entrepreneurs about the understanding of the breadth of what it means to be one.
"We need a better understanding of the path that leads you there and what it takes physically, mentally and financially.
"Some businesses are great at bootstrapping and build really sustainable businesses and others have to raise tons of money. Thinking about that and having visibility of what these different types of businesses require and what the journey ahead of you looks like will help you make an informed decision on whether this is for you and what you want out if it."
If you find these topics interesting, you'll love the Women and Diversity in Tech Festival taking place on the 5th November in Central London. The festival includes keynotes and panels on inspiring women into tech leadership, navigating career transitions and building inclusive products.
There will also be workshops on salary negotiation and opportunities to spend time with mentors along with the all important networking opportunities. For further details and ticketing info please click here