Hungry for More | Supporting Women in Emerging Tech

The Bigger Pie is an organisation supporting women in blockchain that's filled with inspiring and fascinating women.

This Slogging thread by Bridget Greenwood, Golda Velez, Akasha Rose, Alex Lakatos, Limarc Ambalina, Daniel Crowe, Anthony Watson and Justin Roberti occurred in Slogging's official #amas channel and has been edited for readability.

Good morning/afternoon/evening and thank you Akasha Rose for the kind introduction. I look forward to my grilling and discovering much more about you all too.

Hi Bridget Greenwood!  Thanks so much for sharing your time!

I would love some advice on how to get attention to our upcoming token offering for equity in our real-world startup - we share equity with crypto and share food with neighbors!

Hi Bridget, welcome. Who are some role models that you look up to in the Blockchain and crypto space?

Well, it was your Telegram group Akasha Rose Women in Blockchain International Impact Group which led me to meet many women whom I admire in the space, when I joined in 2017/2018, so thank you so much for creating that, I still enjoy being a member of it today. There are too many for me to mention, and far too many I haven't met yet.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/caitlin-long-/ is leading blazing a trail and doing incredible work in Wyoming to set up legal frameworks for blockchain friendly industry. She recognised the issues inherent with the traditional financial systems and has been pioneering in this space.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jo-jo-hubbard-76bb7723/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/jemmagreen/ are doing really great work in the energy sector.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alevinesq/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-ashley-klayman/ are just 2 of many in the legal sector
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jannahpatchay/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynn-t-mcconnell-9331275/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoria-thompson-429a8495/ in regulation and more
https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjaneleadershipfintechblockchainimpactstrategy/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/sorchamulligan/ for their social impact/sustainability work
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amberghaddar/ for laying down rails for institutional money to come into the de-fi world
https://www.linkedin.com/in/genevieveleveille/ for her work in Agritech
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dawn-song-51586033/ and her team at the Oasis Protocol
https://www.linkedin.com/in/frida-tongxu-cai-9755449b/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/linda-s-leaney-9a3076151/ for their work in stable coins
https://www.linkedin.com/in/zarazamani/ for her technical and leadership skills
https://www.linkedin.com/in/veronicamihaid/ for her all round brilliance, knowledge and work she does in including and mentoring so many
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-levalley-hunt/ for her straight talking, full action approach to life and work
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nisaamoils/ for her work in creating more female investment for and from women

Golda Velez that sounds like a very interesting project. Who are you looking to raise funds from? Investors? Angels? The community? Have you thought through the tokeneconomics of it all? We recently had a conversation within The Bigger Pie community around tokeneconomics which you can watch here if it's of value https://youtu.be/eE-YpDR_JNI

eHy Bridget Greenwood! So we are looking to raise from both small angel investors (any level but must be accredited) and possibly larger investors who share our values - we are talking to one right now. The most important thing to us is to be able to share equity with our team members in a very granular way. We actually put our COOK tokens directly onto Trello tasks!

We aren’t designing the smart contract ourselves since we are using the established Fairmint model, it came from a published paper by Thibault https://github.com/C-ORG/whitepaper - so it's not so much that we have a new algorithm but we are pushing the boundaries of this one in terms of granular equity sharing.

I am more a reader than a video watcher honestly but I will take a look! thanks!

(ours is also constrained in that it is also a legal securities filing, we have our secD etc in all states in the US)

Reach out to https://www.linkedin.com/in/nisaamoils/

Will do, thank you!

Hey Bridget Greenwood, thanks for doing the AMA! What resource would you recommend for people to learn how to develop for the blockchain?

Thanks again for doing the AMA Bridget! Your org is made up of leaders and learners in blockchain and the "emerging tech space". At the moment, what constitutes emerging tech, other than blockchain?

So that's IoT, AI, 5G etc, they don't operate in isolation.

Alex Lakatos our in house tech expert https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatherswope/ (another one to add to the list of women I admire in the space) has shared this:

I highly recommend https://academy.b9lab.com/ . I learned A LOT. It is very intense and the instructors review code very carefully. B9 Lab did the original Consensys training before Consensys started doing its own training. Ivan on Tech (https://academy.ivanontech.com/) is also well-known, but I don’t have any first-hand experience with it.

What are your thoughts on IOTA vs. blockchain?

I don't have the technical expertise to be able to give an answer worth listening to on that Daniel Crowe 🙂

I would be curious about an insider perspective of the coming ETH 2.0. Do you think Proof of Stake rewards the rich and well-off too much, breaking decentralization? Or do you think Proof of Work too expensive to continue? Do you think the miners will cooperate?

Bridget Greenwood Nice to meet you. How has your membership grown since the 2020-2021 BTC bull run? Are women in leadership part of the mainstreaming of crypto? Do you find a qualitative difference in the goals and approach of female-led blockchain companies?

Is the toxic bro-culture of crypto (tradeshows at strip clubs, etc.) a thing of the past?

ty, Justin

Justin Roberti thanks for your question, I think the pandemic has been more influential to our community growth than the bull run. A lot of women are in this technology because they see the power it has and its ability to transform industries and solve problems. Not being allowed to travel, go to conferences and meet in person has meant that online interaction and communities have become more valuable. I've seen crypto trading groups (women-focused) attract a lot of newbies, and definitely much noisier than they were during the crypto winter, but those building the rails, the founders, the policy-makers, they're shaping the future and are in it for the long haul and our community is largely made up of those women. I would love to say the toxic bro-culture of crypto has disappeared, but there's still an element of that about, and I guess we'll really see when we can go to conferences in person again.

Anthony Watson I wish I had an insider perspective ....

Hey Bridget, I am wondering what your thoughts are about how the emerging tech sector can do more to support women? Where quick wins are, and where the difficult work needs to be done?

Bridget Greenwood given that finance and tech have hardcore "old boy" and "new boy" networks respectively, have you thought about blockchain implementations in healthcare where women are more prevalent in the C-Suite and their gravitas leveraged?

In regards to women in blockchain and women in tech in general, what do you see as the biggest barrier to more women applying for and landing jobs in the space? What can companies do to help even out the playing field?

Akasha Rose in regards to what can be done more to support women in the emerging tech sector here are some areas:

Make the women in your organisations visible, and let them have a platform to share their insights and experience internally and externally. Don't attend a panel if it's a manel (men only) and if you hold panels, make sure you never hold manels. There are female experts in the space, find them. History has a bad habit of writing women, people of colour, LGBTQ out of the history books. Let's make sure we don't continue this Hidden Figures approach.

At events make sure there is an inclusion policy and the event works consciously at creating a safe and welcoming environment for everyone. Women are often a small percentage of attendees, so make sure they can easily connect with one another ( a simple Telegram group for women as they register, or are show an interest in the event, so they can connect, ask questions beforehand, and then easily meet up at the event) will go a long way.

Work hard on your hiring processes to make sure you use language that is inclusive, there are tools out there to help you with the language. http://gender-decoder.katmatfield.com/ This site is a quick way to check whether a job advert has the kind of subtle linguistic gender-coding that has this discouraging effect. Check out https://app.50intech.com/ for good examples of how roles are advertised and the information shared about the company as well as the role.

People often recruit from their network, so if your network isn't diverse, your recruiting pool won't be, either. If that's the case, find and approach groups and networks that do have access to the female talent, like The Bigger Pie, Women in Blockchain International Impact Group, Women in Blockchain, Ada's List etc.

If you hire for diversity but don't have an inclusive culture, your talent won't stay. Work on your culture. Make sure you don't fall foul of the gender pay gap.

Have parental leave policies.

The pandemic has been very damaging in a multitude of ways, but remote and flexible working has been forced upon us all, let this be something we foster and embrace. Focusing on hiring the best talent, not the talent closest to our offices, and working in time frames that allow great work to be delivered, and life to be better managed. A poor work-life balance is a major reason women leave tech.

Learn how to be a good ally to women, call out bad behaviour when you see it. Give women a voice and listen to them, it's amazing the value you'll discover. Being inclusive in one area will allow you to open up a culture to inclusivity across the spectrum. This will foster a psychologically safe space for your team, and that's where creativity, innovation and magic happens.

We need to see more female-led startups get the funding they need. Women get just 2.3% of global VC funding, down from 2.9% pre-pandemic. Having female-led companies does wonders for gender inclusion across senior positions and provides role models for the pipeline of up and coming talent.

Above all, truly understand why diversity and inclusion is something worth doing & how having more experiences at the design, development and deployment tables will help you to shape better solutions for your customers, foster more engaged communities, create more innovation & drive more revenue and increase profits.

I'd love to hear what others think, and where you've seen wins in this area.

Anthony Watson "have you thought about blockchain implementations in healthcare where women are more prevalent in the C-Suite and their gravitas leveraged?"
In what respect might I have thought about it? Are you saying you see a greater number of women in the C-Suite in health care than other sectors?

Limarc Ambalina "In regards to women in blockchain and women in tech in general what do you see as the biggest barrier to more women applying for and landing jobs in the space? What can companies do to help even out the playing field?"

See above. We must remember also that it's not a case of fixing the women. So the often quoted a woman won't apply for a job unless she ticks all of the required skills and experience (or at least 80% of them) and that a man will apply if they have just 20%, or in another way, a man will apply for a role 2 years before they're ready for it and a woman 2 years after they're ready. Imagine 4 years in emerging tech, what gets built in that time.

So make sure you use language that is inviting for these people. As Keir Finlow-Bates said, if you have a cv that's exactly the same, but one is from a man and the other a woman. It's most likely the man has fallen into his career choice and path, but a woman has actively chosen hers and overcomes challenges that the man didn't have to. Based on that assumption, who would you prefer to hire?

If the boy's network is still the best way to hear about roles, and get your foot in the door, then actively work to create inclusive networks. Actively go out to the networks where female talent are comfortable and hang out and become allies. Mentor women. Advocate for women. Recommend women. Create opportunities for women to connect with peers at the work place. If you don't have women, or only one or two women in your firm, reach out to other companies and communities for these women to have a number of ways to feel supported and part of a more gender balanced ecosystem, at least until such time as your company has that internally.

What solutions and actions do you think could be taken Limarc Ambalina?

Alex Lakatos cryptozombies has also been recommended for learning Solidity in a fun way :)

Thanks for your thoughts, Bridget! "Actively go out to the networks where female talent are comfortable and hang out"

I'm not in HR, so I don't have much experience with career networks, but in the companies I've worked for in the past and with HN, the most common places I've seen job postings go up are: LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Indeed and of course shared on social media.

Have you found any particular job board or social media platform more inclusive than others? Or when you say "networks where female talent are comfortable" are you referring to certain groups within social networks (like FB groups, subreddits, Linkedin groups, etc.)?

I am referring to certain interest groups within social networks and stand alone networks - like The Bigger Pie, Women in Blockchain International Impact Group, Women in Blockchain, Ada's List. Girls who code - you can find a whole host by just googling 'Women in tech groups' for example. Same for Women on Boards if you're looking for board hires etc

Thanks Bridget! I went down the rabbit hole with the B9Lab resources around developing for ethereum, I'll give cryptozombies a look as well!

Bridget Greenwood yes versus finance and tech, healthcare has more women in decision making positions. Blockchain has some real implications for healthcare I think. Sharing data anonymously about patients to find patterns without violating HIPAA for example

Bridget is with us for just a few more hours, any final questions before wrap up?

Anthony Watson do you know if that mirrors women in c suite in the traditional sectors?

Alex Lakatos As mentioned the Cryptozombies is a great introduction https://cryptozombies.io/. There's also the Eat the Block tutorials helpful https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbbtODcOYIoE0D6fschNU4rqtGFRpk3ea. ... and the Consensys Developer course.

Thanks Bridget Greenwood for being our Slogging AMA guest, any final words before we close?

Thank you so much for hosting me and for all of your questions. If anyone would like to connect with me please do so on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/bridgetgreenwood/, via email mailto:[email protected]. You can discover more at http://www.thebiggerpie.io. If you're a business looking to attract more women into your company, do reach out. If you're a woman in blockchain and would like to join our community, we'd love to welcome you. Do get involved in our events, and if there's anything I can do to support you, let me know.