Women Hackers
Etsy, the mammoth e-commerce site which sells handmade and vintage goods (with over $62.8 million of goods sold in March 2012), wants to support female hackers via its Etsy Hacker Grants.
Before you begin with visions of yourself concealing a transmitter in the cut-out of your daily college planner or in your son’s P&J, what Etsy is calling a female hacker, is really an effort to encourage, educate and enlist more female programmers into the technology industry.
Etsy is offering ten “Etsy Hacker Grants of $5,000 each” to women who apply and are accepted to attend The Hacker School in New York City (actually, Brooklyn, the other New York City). The school is a 3-month, full-time program, which begins June 4, 2012.
There is no tuition to attend The Hacker School. The $50,000 in Etsy Hacker Grants is meant to aide students with living expenses.
Of a total of 40 students accepted into this summer program, The Hacker School and Etsy are attempting to accept 20 women into the June program.
In a blogpost on Etsy, Marc Hedlund is VP of Engineering at Etsy writes, “Twenty is a small number, but it would roughly match the total number of female engineers I’ve hired in the past 17 years.”
If you are a female interested in programming and engineering, apply. What’s stopping you? Three-months in best city in the world; tuition free; money for living expenses; an introduction to engineers and employees from very large company that supports women and women’s businesses….it’s a no brainer. Apply!
And if you happen to know a young woman with an interest in programming and engineering, be an e-mail mentor and please forward her this article.
Editor’s Note: I looked and looked for a stock photograph of a cool looking female computer programmer (one in keeping with the aesthetics of BohoMamma) on our stock photography sites. There are none.
There were several photographs with women in white lab coats; a few stock photos of two women staring over a computer, also in white lab coats, with their hands up to their mouths in surprise; one with a lady on the floor staring at the camera, her computer a second-thought and what looks to be very cold legs because she was wearing some sort of mini skirt and socks that came to her knees; and, the others, you really don’t need the other images in your head today.
I was looking for the lady with her legs kicked up on the desk; two empty coffee cups next to her; her hair tossed upon her head; paperwork strewn about; and, maybe a one-year old pulling at her chair.
So, please do your part in expanding stock photography options in this country.When there are more women programmers, there will be more cool women programmer stock photographs for sites like ours.
