Searching For an IT Community, and Then Building One
Written by Karina Machado
To define the proposal of this blog, first I need to discuss what motivated me to have a blog at all. I will summarize very quickly. I am 21 years old, married with a little daughter, living in Manaus. I am still getting to know the area of IT, including career paths and opportunities that are available. I was super motivated in my exploration of this field, because it was an opportunity to learn how to develop websites so that I could work from home, while caring for my daughter and earning money as a freelancer.
After one year, I returned to Recife and my husband Maik and I had the idea of opening a software development company “Ryuge.net ” specializing in handling the complications of a mobile sales force for palm and pocket pc. Learning was amazing, but we found that technical knowledge and money are not enough to maintain a company, other skills are needed. Therefore, after 5 years we closed the company. My husband decided to return to looking for a job and I went back to college.
In college I always liked to study in groups, sharing information back and forth with my colleagues. I believe that studying and working as a synergistic team is much better than going it alone, which is why I began to attend events and join communities relating to the IT field. That made me want to be more actively involved, while at the same time I realized that the number of women both in college and in tech communities is much lower than men.
I searched the internet for women in IT communities and found the Women Who Code global organization based out of San Francisco, CA. This was a group dedicated to educating and inspiring women to seek knowledge and excel in technological careers. The organization achieved in 2015 the milestone of 50,000 members in 20 countries.
I wanted to start a WWCode group in Recife where I live, so I presented the idea to some colleagues in the industry. Getting a good reception I then went on to found the network in our city on January 8, 2014. I’ve now spent two years organizing groups of fortnightly studies, marathons programming and lectures. Being a member of this organization is making a big difference in my professional and personal life, and has helped me to conquer new opportunities, while new friendships and partnerships have emerged. It is sincerely an honor to be part of it all. 🙂
Therefore, as a teacher of technical progress in information technology, and an active participant in tech communities, I believe that through this blog I can share knowledge and experience, while also learning, because when we have a proposal to contribute I always learn more.
The blog posts will be fortnightly and will consist of technical articles, tutorials, ideas, projects, events, opportunities, and interviews, with some content contributed by esteemed guest authors. I plan to execute this publication with great care and dedication. I conclude with a phrase that I love and that contextualizes the whole proposal. “None of us, are as good as all of us.
Big Hugs!
Karina Machado
Director WWCode Recife
