"Women in Tech" (WIT)

We (Gender Equality Officers) organize a "Women in Tech" event up to five times a year. The aim is to invite strong women - e.g. alumnae, founders, software developers, PhD students or professors - from the tech industry to give a lecture on their current work and career. This is primarily intended to counteract the lack of female role models for identification. But of course the female perspectives are enriching for all students (keyword: "broadening horizons").

The "Women in Tech" series has much more to offer: Apart from creating role models and pointing out perspectives, the WIT talks also offer a space to get useful advice and talk about (supposedly) taboo topics. For example, things like doubts about studying, dropping out/changing your degree program, salaries and salary expectations or sexualized discrimination and violence can be discussed. In addition, many students find themselves in orientation phases throughout the course of their studies and are very interested to know what opportunities are open to them with their degree. Therefore, insights into personal decisions are particularly valuable. Topics such as experiences with gender aspects in the world of work are also addressed. The WIT talks are open to all interested parties; everyone is welcome, and this explicitly includes men ;)

You can always send us suggestions for female speakers via mail to gleichstellungsbeauftragteuhpi.uni-potsdampde

Events in summer term 2022

"Women in Tech"-Workshop: Your first Flutter-App with Mira Jago

April 21, 2022 (5pm - 6:30pm)

Flutter is a framework based on the Dart programming language. With Flutter you can quickly and easily create fancy apps that run on Android smartphones and iPhones. In this workshop we will build our first app using the online IDE FlutLab.

Mira Jago founded her app development agency Cuckoo Coding GmbH in 2017 and soon specialized in flutter app development with her company. The Cuckoos are currently 12 employees from different countries, all working remotely. Mira is the founder of the Google Developer Group Hannover and the Women Techmakers Hannover.

Women in Tech Conference: Future Work

May 12/13, 2022

This year, supported by the Gender Equality Officers, the first Women in Tech Conference at HPI will take place with its motto “Future Work”. To participate in the conference, a ticket is required (25 EUR for students, 50 EUR for PhD students, 75 EUR regular).

Attendance and free participation at the Women in Tech conference (and at the European Women in Technology conference in Amsterdam) is also part of the HPI travel grant for female computer science students. Details about the scholarships and how to apply can be found here.

More information: https://hpi.de/en/events/hpi-events/2022/women-in-tech-conference.html

Women in Tech X HPI Entrepreneur Club: Female Founders Talk

June 21, 2022 (5 - 7 p.m.), digital via Zoom
Talk and conversation with Dr. Naja von Schmude: Insights and learnings from a female founder in tech
Dr. Naja von Schmude is co-founder and CTO of Peregrine.ai, where she shapes the development of Peregrine's computer vision-based products to enable commercial fleets and mobility services to operate safely and efficiently. Naja holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Heidelberg, Germany, with a focus on computer vision applications in robotics and autonomous driving. She gained 5 years of experience in research and development at Bosch in Germany and Palo Alto, USA. Prior to founding Peregrine, she led TomTom's localization activities in the autonomous driving research unit as a Senior Software Engineer.

Registration: https://hpi.de/en/the-hpi/registration/2022/women-in-tech-talk-mit-naja-von/

Previous WIT events

Talks

In the meantime, various formats of WIT events have been established. We started with the "Women in Tech" talks, which are held according to the original idea of a presentation followed by a get-together.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Karin Vosseberg

On June 6, 2019 the first speaker, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Karin Vosseberg, spoke about her career and research work. She is currently working as a university lecturer and deputy rector.

Johanna Janiszewski

On February 20, 2020 Johanna Janiszewski, founder and managing director of "Tiny Crocodile Studios" in Berlin, spoke about her career and her experiences with gender aspects at work.

Sabine Wieluch

On November 19, 2020, Sabine Wieluch spoke about her path to computer science and her academic focus in generative art.

Christine Regitz

On January 14, 2021, Christine Regitz presented her career and her responsibilities as head of the global Women in Tech @ SAP program.

Kenza Ait Si Abbou

On 06.03.2021, Kenza Ait Si Abbou talked about her experiences in the IT industry, her new book, and her big goal of bringing people from different backgrounds together

Prof. Dr. Sylvia Thun

On 06.01.2022 we had Prof. Dr. Sylvia Thun as a guest, who gave a lecture on the topic "Why Women and AI are the Future of Digital Medicine".

Alumnae

A second format is the panel discussion with former HPI students. Under the label "WIT meets HPI Alumnae", former female HPI students from different career paths are brought together and interviewed about their career, experiences and opinions. Questions that are on the minds of the students in the audience can also be asked at any time.

Kristina Kirsten (MSc)

On July 25, 2019, we had three HPI alumnae as guests who talked about their careers after HPI. Kristina Kirsten is a PhD candidate at the Chair of Connected Health at the Digital Health Center.

Ann Katrin Kuessner (BSc)

On July 25, 2019, we had three HPI alumnae as guests who talked about their careers after HPI. Ann Katrin Kuessner works as a product manager at Google Zurich in the Google Assistant Team.

Jennifer Stamm (MSc)

On July 25, 2019, we had three HPI alumnae as guests who talked about their careers after HPI. Jennifer Stamm works as a full-stack developer at the SAP Innovation Center.

Cindy Perscheid (MSc)

On July 2, 2020 we had four HPI alumnae as guests who talked about their careers after the HPI. Cindy Perscheid has been pursuing her PhD at the EPIC chair since 2013.

Andrina Mascher (M.Sc.)

On March 02, 2021, we had three HPI alumnae as guests who talked about their careers after HPI. Andrina Mascher is interested in agile development, team organization and UX design

Janett Baresel

On 03.02.2022 we had three HPI alumnae as guests. Janett Baresel completed her Master's degree at HPI and is currently leading the development team for the 3D Scene Viewer at ESRI in Zurich

Workshops

We also organize workshops and hosted, for example, a Code Pub meet-up.