PyStar Philly offers Python training for women, part of female tech scene

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods Program, the capstone class for the Temple Journalism Department.
A perception exists that computer programming is dominated by males, though there’s more balance here than you might think.
Pystar Philly, held this Saturday at Azavea’s headquarters in Callowhill, is a workshop event designed specifically to reach out to women interested in learning to develop using the programming language Python.
“The goal is to introduce Python to a group of people who have never been exposed to it before, and make it seem fun, appealing and easy to do,” said Dana Bauer, event organizer and GIS analyst at Azavea, in an interview with Technically Philly.
“Python is cool because it is relatively easy to learn and start making things quickly,” Bauer said.
Engaging women who want to gain skills for a personal agenda or to make them more employable is the purpose of the Pystar workshops.
“We want to create a friendly, inviting environment for women interested in learning to code to do so in,” Bauer said.

“There has been a real groundswell for women developers in the past few months in Philly,” added Mike Taylor, a code developer for Mozilla and volunteer at Pystar Philly, who is better known as “Bear” in the tech community.
The presence of men at the workshops is limited to invitees of the women attendees only.
“This is to ensure that the focus stays on teaching and training, and not on open-source developers competing with one another,” Taylor said.
Corey Leigh Latislaw, a software engineer for Comcast Interactive Media who volunteered for Pystar Philly, is very active in the women-tech scene in Philly and concurred with the growing number of other active women.
“I volunteer for just about anything that gets women into technology,” Latislaw said. “We have Girl Geek Dinners where we get together and talk on a quarterly basis, as well as meet ups in between.” Latislaw also serves on the board of Women in Cable Telecommunications as a tech application director, a position she said she enjoys because she gets to get women interested in the possibilities technology can unlock for them.
“Every time I go to a tech meet up, I meet more women who introduce me to other women,” Latislaw said. “The whole scene just really exploded. I’m not sure why it happened right now instead of earlier, but I’m happy to be a part of it.”
Click here for more information about Pystar.