Women Techmakers | Montreal 2017
powered by GDG Montreal Android
April 1st & 2nd, 2017 at École de technologie supérieure
Two amazing days of learning, growing and mingling.
Subscribe to our mailing list
We will keep you updated about the latest news!
About
Women Techmakers is a program created by Google to celebrate International Women's Day and to highlight the talent of women in technology. In 2017, we decided to organize the second edition in Montreal as part of the special event "The Women Techmakers Global Event Series Celebrating International Women’s Day" (WTM IWD). This program has been in over 200 global events and seen across 52 countries. The main focus of this community-building initiative is to promote talented and passionate women, increase the visibility of the Montreal technology community and honour women in technology.
Keynote
Alicia V Carr
Director of Women Who Code Atlanta
CEO/Founder of Purple Evolution, Inc (PEVO)
and AWESOME!!! Grandma of 8
Alicia is the first woman of color mobile developer to create a domestic violence app (PEVO) dedicated to helping victims escape abuse. She used her acquired skills as a developer to make a difference. Alicia is also Director of Women Who Code Atlanta she dedicated to empowering women in tech with Women Who Code, she knows that it the future and an opportunity. She believe with a woman touch we can we change the world.
Speakers
Tara Akhavan
Co founder and CTO at IRYStec
Tara Akhavan is a technology entrepreneur. She is the founder and CTO of IRYStec, a Series-A Montreal based startup in the display industry. Prior to founding IRYStec, she has been awarded for scaling an Operations and Maintenance Center (OMC) product in the Telecommunications industry all the way from analyze and design to deployment in a 3GPP mobile network with 20 Million subscribers. Tara holds a Bachelor degree in Computer Engineering, a Master degree is Artificial Intelligence and is finishing her Ph.D. in Image Processing and Computer Vision from Vienna University of Technology. Tara is an active member and the Marketing Chair of the Society of Information Displays (SID).
Kim Berthiaume
Cofounder and Creative Director at Affordance Studio
Kim is the Creative Director at Affordance Studio where she’s the lead on many transmedia experiences. She currently teaches UX design at the Institut Supérieur de l’Art Digital in Montreal and she’s active in the field of interactive media as a member of the Board of Directors for the Regroupement des Producteurs en Multimédia (RPM).
Anne Gauthier
Application Security Analyst at GoSecure and OWASP Montreal Chapter Leader
Anne Gauthier is an application security analyst at GoSecure. Anne is also the president of the Montreal Chapter of OWASP – the industry standard for web application security. With a penetration testing background, she specializes in secure code reviews and in helping companies to improve their software development lifecycle (SDLC) according to industry best practices. Anne is CSSLP, GWAPT and GSSP-JAVA certified. She obtained a Software Engineering bachelor’s degree from Ecole de Technologie Supérieure in Montréal and is now pursuing a Master of Engineering (MEng) degree in Information Systems Security at Concordia University.
Jameson Hampton
Engineer at Agrilyst and non-binary forest creature
Jamey is a non-binary adventurer from Buffalo, NY who wishes they were immortal so they'd have time to visit every coffeeshop in the world. They spend most of their time writing code for Agrilyst (an agtech startup in Brooklyn), doing public speaking & advocacy on the transgender experience, making zines and thinking about Star Wars.
Rachade Hmamouchi
Founder at IasoG and Bioinformatician data analyst
Based in Montreal, lived in Morocco, France, Switzerland, and Canada. Worked as bioinformatician in the academic, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, and recently founded IasoG, a biotech startup how aims to help patients to personalize their nutrition according to their genes. Technology and sciences enthousiaste, love to share experiences, always a good way to learn new things!
Myriam Jessier
Freelance SEO lady
Myriam works on websites to satisfy mobile humans, desktop robots and everything in between.
Jen Kramer
Lecturer at Harvard University Extension School
For more than fifteen years, Jen Kramer has been educating clients, colleagues, friends and graduate students about the meaning of a "quality website." Since 2000, she has built websites that are supportive of business and marketing goals in a freelance capacity and as part of an agency.
Jen is a Lecturer at Harvard University Extension School in the Master's of Liberal Arts in Digital Media Design, teaching five courses per year, advising students, and assisting in curriculum design.
Jen is also a prolific video author, creating 27 training courses for lynda.com, O'Reilly Media, and Aquent Gymnasium.
She is also available for individual private tutoring, customized classroom training, and occasional freelance web design work.
Jen earned a BS in biology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MS in Internet Strategy Management at the Marlboro College Graduate School.
Cassie L. Rhéaume
Front-end developer, Montreal-francophone chapter lead & Teen code club organizer @ Ladies Learning Code
After a career in digital marketing in various agencies, Cassie started her journey to becoming a web developer. Since then, she has worked in development centers, startups, and web agencies. Learning to code was a pivotal moment in her career and she decided to start a new adventure: teaching others how to code.
Over the years, she's become a vocal advocate of diversity in the Montréal tech industry and actively participates in many local groups to encourage others to start coding.
Kerri Miller
An Accidental Engineer
Kerri Miller is a Software Developer and Team Lead based in the Pacific Northwest. She has worked at enterprise companies, international ad agencies, boutique consultancies, start-ups, mentors and teaches students, and finds time to work on Open Source projects. Having an insatiable curiosity, she has worked as a lighting designer, marionette puppeteer, sous chef, and professional poker player, and enjoys hiking, collecting Vespas, and working with molten glass.
Nitya Narasimhan
Independent Mobile/Web Solutions Architect
Nitya is a software architect and PhD in computer engineering, with two decades of experience building software systems and applications for mobile consumers. She consults for early stage startups and is using Firebase in projects targeting Internet of Things and Social Good. She organizes the Google Developer Groups in NYC & Hudson Valley and is a deep learning and ed-tech enthusiast. You can find her on Twitter @nitya.
Daniella Niyonkuru
Production Engineer at Shopify and STEM advocate
Daniella Niyonkuru is a Production Engineer at Shopify where she helps build a better, faster and more resilient platform. Previously, Daniella worked as an Aircraft System Software Specialist, and researched Formal Model Driven Development for Embedded Systems. She holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Systems and a Master's in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Daniella has been the recipient of multiple awards including the prestigious Governor General’s Academic Medal and Senate Medal for Outstanding Academic Achievement.
Throughout her studies and work experience, she has always had at heart to inspire more women to embrace STEM careers and unleash their full potential. Oh, she loves reading and is also a music afficionado!
Tara Z. Manicsic
Developer Advocate & Advocate for Good Times
Tara (@tzmanics) is a life-long student, teacher and maker. She has spent the majority of her career using Javascript on both back-end and front-end to create applications. In her free time she works in her community to educate and learn from other developers. Tara launched the Cincinnati Chapter of Women Who Code and Co-Chairs the Cincinnati branch of NodeSchool. Beyond code, she likes to make things with other materials (wool, solder, clay, etc.) and hike any mountain she can get to with here trusty sidekick, #toshmagosh.
Rebecca Poulson
Developer at Knight Lab
Rebecca Poulson is a developer at Knight Lab at Northwestern University where she gets to build weird open source tools for journalists. She's particularly excited about WebVR, getting writers involved with open source and tacos. Prior to joining Knight Lab, Rebecca was a Kickstarter engineer, playwright and bartender.
Catherine Proulx
Software crafter and pixel researcher
Catherine Proulx is a software developer specialized in computer vision and medical imaging, with a strong focus on practical applications. Her main expertise is converting academic proofs-of-concept into robust software.
She has worked at Zimmer CAS and Unity Technologies, where she was actively involved in testing strategy. She currently does medical simulation research at the National Research Council of Canada.
Ashley Quinto Powell
Business Development Manager,
Bendyworks, Madison, WI
Ashley has been in technical consulting sales for 10 years, and is the Business Development Manager for Bendyworks in Madison, WI. Ashley is a co-organizer the Madison Women in Tech, an ambassador for the Doyenne Group for female entrepreneurs, and is a 2017 Brava Magazine Woman to Watch. When not at Bendyworks, she be found at home- painting, crafting, cooking and toddler-wrangling.
Melinda Seckington
Developer at FutureLearn, Occasional Blogger & Event Organiser
Melinda is a Ruby developer at FutureLearn, a social learning platform, and leads the team’s employee evangelism. She loves attending BarCamps, Hackdays and other tech meet ups, and since 2009 has been organising them at Geeks of London. She also writes at MissGeeky, a blog about all things geeky and girly. When she’s not busy with events or blogging, you can find Melinda curled up on her couch with a good book or video game.
Heidi Waterhouse
Technical Communicator, Enthusiast, and Queen Distractobot
Heidi is a technical writer trying to work herself out of a job by training everyone to be a little bit better at communicating. When she has free time, she sews her own clothes for speaking and gets animated about comprehensive sex ed and traveling carryon-only.
Rachel White
Loves cats, robots, and fog machines
Rachel is currently a Technical Evangelist at Microsoft, but is also a self-taught programmer & occasional artist. She is currently working on multiple video game projects, a VR cat cafe, and thinking about what IoT devices she can build for her two black cats. Her other interests include glitch art, 80s horror, and indie games. Her aesthetic is fog machines, laser lights, and broken VHS tapes.
Venue
École de technologie supérieure
1100 Notre-Dame W, Montreal, QC H3C 1K3
École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) is a public engineering school in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974, the École de technologie supérieure is part of the Université du Québec system and offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs.
Accomodations
alt Hotel Montreal
120 Peel Street, Montreal, QC H3C 0L8
$144/night for one bed room (sleep 2)
$164/night for two bed room (sleep 4)
You must call +1 855 823-8120 (toll-free) to reserve and mention "Women Techmakers"
Special rates are available from March 31th to April 3rd, 2017
Schedule
-
8:00 AM
Check-in & Breakfast
60 minutes | Salle des pas perdus9:00 AMKeynote: How I become a developer later in life and as Women we can make our own
60 minutes | Room A (A-1600)by Alicia V Carr
How I became a developer in my 50th. My challenges, my assumption and my victories and why as women we are more powerful than we think. That we are more creative and have the skills to make our own.
10:00 AMHow Tech Almost Missed Out on Me: A true story from a not-so-stereotypical techmaker
60 minutes | Room A (A-1600)by Daniella Niyonkuru
My story begins in one of the poorest countries in the world and follows a nonlinear path to becoming a Production Engineer at the best place to work in Canada. I share in the hope that someone will challenge their ideas of what it is to be a techmaker and maybe even recognise a bit of themselves.
Fill up my Chart, Put Some Data in it
60 minutes | Room B (A-1160)by Tara Z. Manicsic
Data Binding & Visualizations with Angular & Kendo UI. There is so much data out there that we could be utilizing. Let’s look at 3 ways to bind that data to our visualizations. From easily taking an array of data and making charts to filling our charts with live, ever-changing data.
11:00 AM5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Programming
60 minutes | Room A (A-1600)by Kerri Miller
As an instructor and mentor with 20+ years of experience, I’m frequently asked for career advice by women just entering the field. This talk is a summary of the advice I give them, and what I wish I could’ve given myself based on all that I’ve learned.
Alt-Ctrl: Scream into this Arduino
60 minutes | Room B (A-1160)by Rachel White
As IoT integration into our daily lives becomes more and more advanced, what are the different ways we can control devices? There’s a plethora of sensors & modules you can use to interact with hardware, even some you can put in your own body, so let’s see how far we can take it.
12:00 PMLunch
90 minutes | Salle des pas perdus1:30 PMI Have ADD and So Can - Ooh, Shiny!
60 minutes | Room A (A-1600)by Heidi Waterhouse
Come listen to me talk about my own invisible neurodiversity and what it has taught me about being a good employee and becoming more effective because of who I am, not in spite of it. Women are especially under-diagnosed, and ADD looks different in women. Why does that matter? I’ll tell you.
Game design thinking for building products
60 minutes | Room B (A-1160)by Kim Berthiaume
Game design has been refined over the past two decades so that the user gets the most immersive and engaging experience. Games delight players by offering them strong storytelling, a feel of mastery and good UX design. How can we use the power of game design thinking in software development?
2:30 PMTechnical Talks: The Effective, The Unbearable, and It's Not About You
60 minutes | Room A (A-1600)by Jen Kramer
What makes an excellent technical talk when presenting to a technical audience? Sometimes less is more. Learn top details from a longtime educator to improve your next talk.
Intelligence is in your Gene: Artificial intelligence applied to Personalized Medicine
60 minutes | Room B (A-1160)by Rachade Hmamouchi
From robotics, to Netflix, Artificial Intelligence is everywhere today, progressing and changing the way we relate to technology and on each other. Now, AI can power your doctor’s diagnoses and your drug prescriptions. This talk will address its potential, provide examples and discuss challenges.
3:30 PMBreak
30 minutes | Salle des pas perdus4:00 PMLadies Learning Code: tips and tricks for successful mentoring
60 minutes | Room A (A-1600)by Cassie L. Rhéaume
From a LLC chapter lead experience, here are some precious tips and trick for successful inclusive mentoring. This talk looks at how you can create a welcoming environment for women and how to teach and create content that’s relevant and helpful for absolute beginners from diverse perspective.
Security Testing: Unlocking the Benefits of a Hybrid Approach
60 minutes | Room B (A-1160)by Anne Gauthier
Adopting a collaborative approach that combines both secure code review and penetration testing for assessing a web application’s cybersecurity posture.
5:00 PMPanel
60 minutes | Room A (A-1600)6:00 PMParty
Undetermined | 100 Genies Resto PubNetworking & Karaoke Night - includes food & drink
-
9:00 AM
Check-in & Breakfast
60 minutes | Salle des pas perdus10:00 AMLearn. Reflect. Refactor.
60 minutes | Room A (A-1600)by Melinda Seckington
As developers, we’re constantly learning: whether it’s figuring out how to solve new problems and bugs, or focusing on new skills and knowledge to apply to our work. This talk looks at how to constantly reflect and refactor your own skills and values, creating your own idea of a “good” developer.
Shaky to solid: a test-based approach to legacy code
60 minutes | Room B (A-1160)by Catherine Proulx
A pragmatic test-driven approach to the problem of inheriting unstable legacy code, based on real-life high-stakes projects. We will cover automated and manual testing with limited resources, but also strategies to build a culture of reliability, accountability and pride within a development team.
11:00 AMWhen I realized I need to keep up my personal growth with the business growth
60 minutes | Room A (A-1600)by Tara Akhavan
In today’s world, the business needs to grow fast or it will die. How fast can we grow our skill set? Is this a do-or-die game for us? What are the challenges we face as women in the high-tech industry? Why is it more challenging for women to reach strategic levels and maintain the position?
Virtual Reality for Web Developers with A-Frame
60 minutes | Room B (A-1160)by Rebecca Poulson
WebVR is incredibly exciting for its potential to democratize both the creation and consumption of VR content. We’ll start with a brief overview of the state of WebVR and UX best practices, then we’ll dive right in and show you how you can start developing VR with HTML and JS using A-Frame.
12:00 PMLunch
90 minutes | Salle des pas perdus1:30 PMLightning talks
60 minutes | Room A (A-1600)2:30 PMThere Is No Spoon? Understanding ‘Spoon Theory’ and Preventing Burnout
60 minutes | Room A (A-1600)by Jameson Hampton
Spoon theory is a metaphor about the finite energy we each have to do things in a day. Different people, especially underrepresented people, have to spend their energy in different ways. Understanding that is crucial to creating environments where our devs can do good work and lead fulfilling lives.
Technical SEO in 2017: the basic, the bullsh*t, the future
60 minutes | Room B (A-1160)by Myriam Jessier
Search Engine Optimization is constantly evolving. Sadly there are many technical pitfalls ignored by developers that often render a website invisible to Google.
3:30 PMClosing
30 minutes | Room A (A-1600)
