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Bath GirlGeekDinners back for 2020

Thank you pink

A big thanks to everyone for supporting our Workshop Wednesdays, now that we are structuring it with dedicated channels of learning we have a great turnout and feedback, so a BIG THANKS! See below an overview of everything we are currently planning to run at the next one!

Bath Girl Geek Dinners

The Copernican Calendar has transitioned to the year 2020 – so let’s get started with the amazing world of podcasting, one of Fran’s personal passions (listening that is, not yet making). However, if you have wondered, how these things get done, join us and our guest will tell us all about how she created her podcast and what is involved

Women in Innovation: Building Success – South West by The Knowledge Transfer Network

ktn wii

As part of Innovate UK’s Women in Innovation programme, KTN will be hosting the sixth Building Success event on the 21st January in Bristol.

Take the opportunity to network with like-minded women, learn from experts and hear from successful female business owners at this exciting South West event. There will be a variety of practical workshops delivered by experts to accelerate your knowledge and an Innovation Canvas* session that will help identify your particular innovation challenges and prioritise what actions you should take next. You will also have the chance to learn about, and interact with, national and regional support organizations that can help take your business to the next level.

Female founders and women working within innovation from all industries are encouraged to attend.

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Mayden Academy announces new funding scheme to encourage more women into tech careers

Mayden Widjet

During the week we popped over to have a chat with Mayden about their latest initiatives and were suitably impressed! They are now able to offer apprenticeships and have also got the latest funding to support getting women into Tech (YAY!!). Any companies wanting to talk about getting women into tech then we are happy to talk about how this may fit in with a reskilling or returners programme.

Coding bootcamp Mayden Academy has announced a new funding scheme to encourage more women to embark on careers in coding.  

The scheme will offer female students a 70% reduction in course fees on the Academy’s Full Stack Track – an intensive 16 week training course for aspiring developers from non-tech backgrounds.

The course is designed to cover the most in-demand skills that tech companies are looking for, and teaches the fundamentals of coding for front and back-end, along with user design and agile project management.

Students do not need to have any previous coding experience or a background in tech. To date every graduate has been offered a developer role within 90 days of completing the course.

The scheme is being offered in order to address the need for more diversity in the UK tech industry, as part of the new Women into Digital Jobs, Education and Training (WIDJET) skills programme, run by The West of England Combined Authority with funding from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS).

The funding is available on Mayden Academy’s Full Stack Track coding course until February 2020.

Mayden Academy is also offering a series of free coding taster workshops for women to explore whether programming could be the career path for them.

Mike Oram, director of the Academy, said: “We are committed to driving diversity in the tech industry and want to support more women into exciting new careers as software developers – where they can be creative, solve problems, and enjoy new challenges every day. Programming offers so many opportunities to develop and grow in your career, and we believe those opportunities should be open to everyone.”

Mayden Academy joins Bath College, boomsatsuma, Knowle West Media Centre and the Dot Project as WIDJET partners.

West of England Mayor, Tim Bowles, said: “Tech businesses have a particular need for skilled employees now, and this demand is expected to grow in the future. Women are currently under-represented in digital roles and this new project will seek to tackle this by working with a wide group of women in communities, with the aim of moving us towards more representative and inclusive employment in digital roles across the region.”

Women who would like to take advantage of this opportunity to change their career can find out more at https://mayden.academy/widjet.

Notes to editors

About Mayden Academy

Mayden Academy teaches people to code, preparing them for new careers as software developers in just 16 weeks. The Academy is one of the top coding training providers in the UK, with a 100% graduation rate and a 100% post-course employment rate.  The Academy is committed to improving diversity in tech, and works with a range of industry partners to improve access and representation.

www.mayden.academy

Please contact margaret.davidson@mayden.academy for further information.

About WIDJET

More details about WIDJET can be found at www.westofengland-ca.gov.uk/skills/widjet/ or by emailing – widjet@westofengland-ca.gov.uk

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Geeky Hats and Gloves

At our drinks last week we found out about e-stitches and their great mix of tech and fashion! 

‘Tis the season for woolly hats and gloves – 6:30pm on 11th December at The Pervasive Media Studio

For this session we’re going to be looking at soft circuits in hats and gloves. We discussed in last month’s session the use of conductive pompoms to light up woolly hats, and we’ve also found these gloves instructables projects for woolly gloves or cycling gloves

Basic materials to make something will be provided but if you have specific ideas that require materials please bring them along. Any of the following would be useful if you have them and could bring them;

Materials
  • A funky hat or some stylish gloves, Felt or fleecy fabric off cuts, Coloured wool, Conductive wool, LEDs, Button battery or a couple of AAAs, Battery holder or some thick elastic, Conductive thread, Any kind of switch you would like to incorporate
Equipment
  • Pom-pom maker, Crochet hook/knitting needles, Thin nose pliers, Sharps Needle, Darning needle, Scissors, Pencil

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Spread some Christmas Cheer and support the children!

Big Call of the week!! 

DigiLocal has set up a crowdfunding campaign DigiLocal Crowdfunding.  The work that they do to support getting children into coding, working tirelessly into the weekends and evenings for little reward we recognise.  We love the fact that It’s been so succesful based on what we see as plain air and tenacity, working on encouraging inclusion into the realm of Tech – we are in awe!  Everyone wants to ensure theres an inclusive talent pipeline coming through so we would love to see all Tech companies to put thair hands into their pockets in this festive season and support this (it’s that or we put out a John lewis style Christmas AD about it .. just replacing the Piano with a laptop)

Now where are all the xmas parties…

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We signed up to the Bristol Equality Charter

On monday we went to the Bristol Equality Charter launch event.  Rather than describe it in detail you can read the  BBC overview.   The initiative has come from Councillor Asher Craig  who presented on it with great passion.  We loved it and were more than happy to be one of the underlying signatories.

One of the points that Marvin mentioned in his talk really resonated with us. He said that whenever people talk Diversity there seems to be competition with people saying “what about” BAME/Women/Age/Disabled/LGBT?

We believe we are inclusive of all as a group and do not segregate members. To us everyone is equal and we are simply trying to push tech into being more inclusive.  We happily work with other organisations to support them but we are simply concentrating on our area of knowledge.

For those wanting more information here’s the charter Bristol Equality Charter and you are free to sign it Declaration Form and send it to equality.network@bristol.gov.uk  if you want to be part of it .. which we can’t see that anybody reading our posts wouldn’t want to be.