Let’s get more women speaking at tech conferences: UX specialist Jessica Ivins

One way to close the gender gap in technology? Get more women to speak at tech conferences, said AWeber UX specialist Jessica Ivins in a post on UX Brainstorm. Ivins has spoken at SXSW, Midwest UX, IA Summit and UX Camp Ottawa.

Ivins, who spoke about how she broke into public speaking at the Tech in Motion meetup’s Stories of Women in Tech: Part One, wrote:

I recently read Belinda Parmar’s Little Miss Geek, a book about the gender gap in tech and what we can do to change it. Belinda argues that because women enter fields other than technology, employers are often forced to choose the best man for the job, and not the best person.

The same goes for conferences. If fewer women are willing to speak or submit proposals, then we are forced to choose the best men to speak at the conference, and not the best people.

Read the whole post here.

Also check out Ladies in Tech, a resource for women in tech who want to speak publicly. The site was developed by Jenn Lukas, former lead interactive developer at Center City web dev firm Happy Cog, and Yesenia Perez-Cruz, a designer at Happy Cog who will be speaking at Blend Conference this September.