News

An Inspiring Online Community For Women In Tech

by Lauren Holter

It's a well-known fact that women are underrepresented in the tech industry. Only 17 percent of Google's tech jobs are held by women, 15 percent at Facebook, and a mere 10 percent at Twitter, according to the companies' diversity statistics. A new inspirational blog, DRY, creates a community for women in tech to commiserate and learn from each others' successes and failures. The name DRY stands for Don't Repeat Yourself, which is not only an important software programming principle, but it also sends the message that you shouldn't repeat your past or anyone else's. which is why the blog serves as a space for women to help one another advance in the tech industry.

The blog says: "Don't repeat your past or the past of any other. Break boundaries, find comfort in ambition, carve space for exploration, and stay hungry." To allow women to teach and inspire one another, DRY features interviews with successful women in tech, asking them everything from what their current job entails to what advice they have for younger women. So far, the masterminds behind the project, Lucy Cifferello and Zoe Adelman, have talked to the CEO and founder of Artifact Uprising, Jenna Walker, and the CEO and founder of The Cotery, Charlotte Genevier, as well as developers and application engineers.

Along with Q&As with professionals, DRY also collects inspiring quotes from the women it speaks to about the industry, entertainment, mindfulness, and what inspires them.

The idea for the blog came to Cifferello and Adelman when they were students in a computer programming boot camp, realizing that their class was only a quarter female. As they attended networking events and meet-ups for people in the industry, the lack of women only became more apparent. "Experiencing first hand [sic] how few women there are in all technical startup positions was astounding and incredibly frustrating," Adelman says. "As someone who is hungry for mentorship and personal-growth, I have struggled finding many women in this space to learn from, because the numbers simply aren't there. Lucy and I decided to build DRY Blog as a way of connecting to other women in the startup community."

There are two main goals behind DRY, Adelman says — to strengthen the community of women currently in the tech space by sharing stories of value, including triumphs and adversities, and to inspire more women and girls to join the tech community.

Despite more visibility about the lack of women in tech jobs, the ratio of men to women actually widened in recent years — in 1990, 35 percent of computer jobs in the U.S. were held by women, and in 2013 it was only 26 percent, according to research by the American Association of University Women. The majority of men was so noticeable to Adelman and Cifferello that they wanted to do something about it. Adelman says: "Technology is growing so rapidly and at the end of the day, we need as many kick-ass women as possible involved."

Images: DRY (2)