Ada Lovelace day at EclipseCon

March 24 is Ada Lovelace day.  This is a day that to celebrate the achievements of women in science and technology.  As you are probably aware, the number of women participating in open source communities is very low.  From Noise to Signal.

I think it's fitting that I have been able to spend today at EclipseCon with so many of my peers.  As I look around the rooms during talks and tutorials, I think I see more women that I've seen at previously.  I don't think the Eclipse Foundation has data on attendees by gender, so my observations are purely anecdotal.

Yesterday, I participated in a build panel.  When you enter a room to listen to a talk, the conference staff will hand you a card to put in the +1, 0 or -1 bucket to indicate your opinion when you exit.  At the entrance of the room for the build panel, I told the conference staff member at the door that I didn't need a card because I was a speaker.  She looked at me and said. "Really?  You're a speaker? I haven't seen a female speaker all day. Way to go!".

So this Ada Lovelace Day, I'd like to dedicate to the women attending and speaking at EclipseCon.  For the women who have attended EclipseCon this year but not been a speaker, I encourage you to consider submitting a talk next year.

With that in mind, I'm going to head off to a talk by Susan McCourt and Steffen Pingel on the new Mylyn discovery ui in p2.