“Where are all the women?” is a common question asked at tech conferences. It was also one of the first questions #Batch122 student, Carly Petracco, asked when she joined our bootcamp in January this year. I felt defensive and thought to myself, “I am here”. I am a woman, the bootcamp manager and co-founder of Le Wagon in Lisbon. That should count for like 10 women, right!? Plus, Carly’s batch had the highest percentage of women out of the five Lisbon batches before — forty percent!
Carly Petracco, Batch 122 alumni who inspired this new perspective, on Demo Day
But that question really stuck with me over the last few months. Despite being a women myself and knowing the importance of having women represented, our teaching staff was ALL men.