‘We have an embarrassment of riches this year’: Women in Tech Summit 2015

The fourth Women in Tech Summit is April 18 this year, and it’s exponentially bigger and better than ever before.
As in years past, the conference will host an assemblage of tech-minded women — changemakers, innovators and entrepreneurs — for the sole purpose of helping each other learn. Between keynote speakers, networking sessions, workshops and classes, Women in Tech has continued to consolidate a year’s worth of tech education into a single day.
Last year’s summit was held at WHYY. This year’s event is being moved to the Chemical Heritage Foundation on Chestnut Street in order to make room for more attendees and sessions.

Not only are you going to learn, but you're going to meet women in the community.

Speaking of sessions: last year, each block of workshops and classes contained three sessions to choose from; each block this year contains four.
And the speakers? Women in Tech received over 125 applications from prominent women wanting to get on stage to inspire. Make sure to catch the opening keynote from Kelly Hoey, founder of tech networking agency Cuurio and cofounder of the Women Innovate Mobile accelerator. Don’t miss the closing remarks from NBC10’s Renee Chanault-Fattah, either.
“We have an embarrassment of riches this year,” said event organizer and TechGirlz founder Tracey Welson-Rossman.
“We believe we’re continuing to blaze a trail of creating a conference for women in tech that is about teaching,” she says. “It’s not just about telling the story of somebody who became successful.”
While those motivational storytelling sessions do have their place in a conference focused on learning and building tech skills, Welson-Rossman says that every year, the summit gets deeper into adopting a hands-on approach to education.
“You’ll find there’s a lot of energy in a room,” she said. “Not only are you going to learn, but you’re going to meet women in the community.”
Whether you’re a CIO, a developer, or someone just thinking about getting into the tech industry, Welson-Rossman says there’s something for everyone at the Women in Tech Summit.
For starters, sessions and workshops this year will provide attendees with the opportunity to learn JavaScript skills, get familiar with Git, find out how to better build a digital brand, explore the future of big data and even adopt basic business skills like negotiating and networking.
“Women in the industry, we really need to be helping each other,” said Welson-Rossman.
“Economically, it’s where the money is continuing to be at,” she added. “Each year we’re continuing to learn more and more about what’s going on in the tech world, but doing it in a way that we believe is more substantial.”