Today Diana Rodriguez talks to us about her experiences with fostering women's programming communities all over the world, as well as her own experiences with growing as a developer.
Diana Rodriguez, Worldwide Community Organizer for the Vue Vixens Initiative, joins us today to talk about her early experiences with development as a child, her transition into a becoming a full-time professional and her work with getting women from communities all over the world involved with programming!
In the days of yore, gathering programming knowledge wasn't easy, the community was exclusive, and the books were expensive. The only ways to learn were through college, expensive books, or a cool friend willing to give you some information. Despite these difficulties Diana managed to be involved with the Java community, she also had the support of her parents who bought her books. Eventually, Diana's skills grew, and she would put herself out there taking programming gigs. However, it wasn't until six years ago that she decided to go full time.
Eventually, she became jaded with backend work and was craving something new, that's when she discovered Vue and its excellent and welcoming community. This community was much unlike the Java community back in the day, and Diana is working to be a part of that push for inclusivity full-force through Vue Vixens. Diana works to open and grow chapters all over the world.
Diana talks about her recent work in South America and how the dev community was exploding, it was almost overwhelming! There were women from ages 13-72 at the meetup that the Vue Vixens organized in Argentina, the event even had to be split up over two days because there were so many people. Being careful of tunnel vision and thinking about these communities of people from foreign countries, women, and other underrepresented people in the tech and welcoming them can have a substantial positive impact.
Diana Rodriguez:
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