Ada Lovelace Day in TW Uganda

By Ampaire Christine (business analyst TW Uganda)Ada Lovelace Day in TW Uganda was a great success!We started organizing from the first week of October, and, in a very short time, with a lot of helpfrom our colleagues, we could get things done. We asked for sponsors to pay for the snacks and the venue, considering that the office here is quite small and we wouldn't have enough space for our expected audience. At the end, we managed to get Outbox and Airtel as our sponsors, for venue and food respectively. We wanted to make tshirts for the event, so, we asked for help from our friend Letícia Nunes (designer, responsible for the stickers of Grace Hopper and ALD 2012). She customized the same template from last year, therefore we could use it this year and send the art to the vendor. We ordered cupcakes from Bianca, wife of one of our TWer friend (Vinicius Andrade), also bought samosas and soft drinks.We had Ampaire Christine introducing Ada Lovelace to the audience, to make sure that everybody was aware of her importance and contributions to STEM.The second part of the event was about the ‘Life of a woman in IT’ for that, we had Viviana Terceros talking about her experience as a Consultant Developer in Agile teams. She told us why she chose the area, the influence and support she had from her family, the experience of living/working in Brazil and also the challenges she faces in her work.Edith Namuganga also shared with the audience how her experience as a business analyst has been so far. Edith is also a writer, and she told us why she decided to work as a business analyst, her passion in IT and what is the work of a business analyst in Agile teams.Chris Ford was our technical speaker. His intention was showing the audience the power and the control that we have while coding. To explain that, he spoke to us about his passion music with his talk: Functional Composition. Yes! a composition programmed in Clojure. He explained different music scales, and, by running the code, we could listen to Row row row your boat, Cannone Alla Quarta (Sebastian Bach) and In the Mood Our next speaker was Dr. Dorothy Okello, Senior Lecturer at Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Makerere University, Kampala and is also the director of ‘Women In Ugandan Network (WOUGNET)’. She gave a really amazing and inspiring talk by sharing with us her experience in the area, being a mother and a professional, and also her passion for STEM. She said how mathematical logics inspire her and makes her explore creativity and think beyond the obvious! She also gave some advices on how to attract and encourage more women to take up STEM as a career option.It was then time for everyone to enjoy the delicious cupcakes and drinks and mingle around with each other.Finally, Luiza Nunes presented a talk around a very important topic in the Tech industry today, “The Impostor Syndrome” explaining to the audience what it means . She gave an example by sharing a situation in which she could feel the symptoms and the impact of having the syndrome, and showed an interesting talk video by Denise Paolucci, in which Denise explains how to overcome the Impostor Syndrome.We received really good feedbacks about the event the organization, the talks and the speakers. Most people were really satisfied with all aspects mentioned above. However there was a suggestion of having more technical talks run by women in future events. Many people are already excited for the next event! As we've just got the authorization to have Girl Geek Dinner editions in Kampala, probably we're going to have another event for women in IT soon. It's just a matter of organizing the website they gave us, get some sponsors and be ready to rock again! Special thanks to Ampaire Christine, Edith Namuganga, Stephen Magero, James Wire,Vivek Veeramani, Stephen Musoke, Sanchari Ghosh Roy, Raymond Matovu, Pooja Salpekar, Kavitha R and Viviana Terceros, who helped make this event happen.