SAN FRANCISCO — Even in an industry overrun by men, the number of women showing up at major conferences for software developers is paltry.
(Photo: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images)
‘Wow, there are way more women in tech than this,’ Natalie Villalobos remembers thinking in 2013, the first time she attended Google I/O.
Just 8% of attendees at the Internet giant’s annual confab for developers that year were women.
At the time Villalobos was the community manager for Google+. She was also volunteering 20% of her time to Women Techmakers, which held an annual event the night before I/O to bring together women software developers.
After I/O, Villalobos talked her way into a new position as the company’s women in technology advocate, charged year round at Google with raising the visibility of women and at I/O with making sure women are better represented in the audience and on stage.
I approach my job every day saying, ‘How might we put women in technology first?’ Villalobos says.
The strategy appears to be working. This year, 23% of attendees are expected to be women, up from 20% in 2014.
But raising the numbers is no easy feat. Too often women feel alone or ‘other’ in the industry, Villalobos says.
It’s no secret that Silicon Valley has a shortage of women software developers. But it’s not just thin ranks and feelings of isolation that discourage women from attending developer conferences. Open sexism in the tech industry is also frequently on display at these conferences.
Villalobos is tackling the lopsided numbers at Google I/O in different ways. She’s distributing tickets to women in technology groups, handing out grants to cover travel costs and holding coding competitions for women.
For the first time this year, Google created an invitation-only online network for women to connect before and after I/O.
Also new this year at I/O: community guidelines that remind attendees to treat everyone with respect and to call out harassment, discrimination or condescension, whether blatant or via micro-aggressions.
Women will continue to be more visible on stage and in running sessions at I/O, including an all-women panel on engineering for the stratosphere with staffers from Project Loon, Google’s experimental effort to beam the Internet from high-altitude balloons to remote areas of the planet.
Google is in the midst of a major push to bring more women into the tech industry after revealing a year ago that seven out of 10 employees at the company are men. The Internet giant will spend $150 million this year on diversity initiatives.
Google I/O, which draws thousands of developers from around the world, starts Thursday in San Francisco. I/O is the Mountain View, Calif., company’s major conference of the year where it showcases new products and developers get the opportunity to meet with the company and each other.
I think women do want to go to tech conferences and Google I/O does attract women. However, there are barriers to entry that all conferences can lower or eliminate to ensure more women can participate in the events, Villalobos says.
As Google prepared for I/O, Villalobos sat down with USA TODAY. This is a condensed version of the interview edited for clarity.
How to attract more women to Google I/O and tech conferences:
Some of the ways I feel we as an industry can make progress is to work directly with women in technology organizations, to ensure that there is child care and mother’s rooms and also to empower women to be the onstage speakers.
Visibility is a huge component to changing the perception of women in the industry, not only who we are but that we are present in the industry. Megan (Smith, currently chief technology officer of the United States) always used to say: It’s just that we can’t see each other.
On the steps Google has taken to increase the number of women who attend Google I/O:
In 2014, when it was my first time to work on I/O, I started working directly with women in technology organizations. We continue to do that this year to provide invites to their communities.
Another thing I noticed in going to conferences myself: Women always want to get connected before the event and also after the event.
This year a new initiative we are doing is that we created an invitation-only Slack community.
Women a month before the conference are getting connected so when they arrive they are already a community, and that to me is extremely powerful. After the conference, we are going to continue to grow as a community.
On inviting hundreds of women to dinners in San Francisco with Google executives and employees:
Bringing together hundreds of women together at an intimate dinner forges really personal relationships that will last long after I/O.
We have all been to the events where music is too loud and I just really wanted to make it simple. These dinners help cultivate community and connect women before the conference.
What’s really neat is that we have women at different levels across Google sharing their experiences and their stories, and having dinner with these women.
On women being included on stage and on panels at I/O:
That’s my role. My role is to be mindful of how we are approaching supporting women in the industry not just for I/O but at all of our industry events. I work hand in hand with the content team to ensure that there are not only women but underrepresented minorities on stage.
This is the fourth year we are hosting an all-women’s panel, and I am really proud of it. It’s called Engineering for the Stratosphere, and what’s really cool is we will probably have five women from Project Loon talking literally about engineering for the stratosphere. As far as we can tell we are the only developer conference at this scale that has hosted all-women panels consistently.
On the new community guidelines banning harassment at I/O:
I think this is crucial for any conference or any event. We attend and host a lot of conferences and so we like to be able to create a space that feels safe for everyone.
By doing this, we are putting in place I/O as a role model for the behavior we want to see as a standard in the industry.
This is not just a women’s initiative. Men and women from across Google said: We want to do this. We want to create this incredible inclusive community and make sure everyone feels supported.
