Resources For Women In Data Science

7 minute read

Diversity

These are the stages of the current conversation on diversity:

What is diversity?
Why is it important? (demographic representation & good for business)
Where to find candidates and make my organization diverse?
How to retain employees from underrepresented groups?

The focus of this post is to share a comprehensive list of resources for women and non-binary people in data science for the goal of increasing diversity in the workplace.

Purpose

There has been extensive research which shows that women are:

Some positive news is that research has shown that networking events for women do indeed move the needle on equality.

This guide was created to provide a resource for women and non-binary individuals in data science to accomplish the following in a friendly and supportive environment:

building community
networking
developing skills, education
sharing knowledge
finding jobs
advancing their careers
advocating for themselves and others

Male Allies

This resource will also be valuable to male allies who seek to diversify their organization, by proactively:

supporting and amplifying women
finding women speakers for conferences
recruiting women candidates for jobs

If you invite me to speak at your conference, be prepared to get this answer.

I invite other men to do the same.#diversity #inclusion pic.twitter.com/gJlECWOAux
— Francesc @ #io18 (@francesc) April 12, 2018

Guidelines for Engagement

Prior to joining any of the organizations or attending their events, it is essential to become familiar with these details:

Mission: read the mission statement of the organization
Code of Conduct: read the CoC of the organization
Membership: some of the organizations are open solely to women and non-binary people. Others are open to male allies. Be informed and respectful of their membership requirements before joining.

Analytics Conferences for Women

Women in Data Science (WiDS)

hosted at Stanford University
livestreamed around the world, 75K+ participants from 75 countries
annual conference in March

Women in Computer Vision Workshop

2018 conference is September 9 in Munich, Germany

Women in Statistics & Data Science Conference

organized by American Statistical Association
annual conference

Women in Machine Learning Workshop (WiML)

co-located with NeurIPS and ICML
other events co-located with COLT, ICML and more

Women in Data Science Groups

Here’s a list of other organizations in the same space:

Women in Tech Conferences

Women Who Code CONNECT

for women in tech and software engineering
has annual conference

Write/Speak/Code

has annual conference
for women and non-binary

Grace Hopper Celebration

world’s largest gathering of women technologists, 18K+ attendees
annual conference

Organizations

Below are various groups in the data and tech space. You can participate by:

subscribing to their newsletters
joining discussions: Slack team, LinkedIn or Facebook group, Twitter
joining a local chapter or meetup group
attending their talks and workshops (where available: hackathons, conferences)
being an event speaker; giving a workshop
volunteering your time

If there is not a local chapter, consider starting one and enlist the aid of others.

Tech Groups

Group Name	Twitter
Anita Borg Institute	@CommunityAnitaB
Black Girls Code	@blackgirlscode
Black in AI	@black_in_ai
Black Women in Computing	@BWiComputing
Codebar	@codebar
Django Girls	@djangogirls
EdTechWomen	@edtechwomen
Girl Develop It	@girldevelopit
Girl Geek Dinner	@ggdworldwide
Ladies Get Paid	@ladiesgetpaid
Lesbians Who Tech + Allies	@lesbiantech
National Center for Women & Information Technology	@NCWIT
PyLadies	@pyladies
PyLadies Remote	@PyLadiesRemote
Rladies Global	@RLadiesGlobal
Widening Natural Language Processing	@WiNLPWorkshop
Women in Big Data	@DataWomen
Women in Computer Vision Workshop	@WiCVworkshop
Women in Linux	@WomenInLinux
Women in Machine Learning & Data Science	@wimlds
Women in Tech Summit	@WomenTechSummit
Women Who Code	@WomenWhoCode
Write/Speak/Code	@WriteSpeakCode

Diversity & Inclusion Groups

Group Name	Twitter
NumFOCUS DISC	@NumFOCUS
Project Include	@projectinclude
Power to Fly	@powertofly
Women in Tech Fund	@womenintechfund
Women 2.0	@women2

Regional Groups

Group Name	Twitter
AI Club for Gender Minorities (London)	@AIClubGenderMin
Ladies Learning Code (Canada)	@learningcode

Groups with Membership by Application

Group Name	Twitter
Datanauts
Tech Women	@techwomen

Groups with a Membership Fee

Group Name	Twitter
Apres	@apresnyc
Tech Ladies	@HireTechLadies
Women in Technology International	@witi

Travel Grants

Google Travel and Conference Grants

Grants are available for selected conferences in the fields of technology and business. Grants are available in North America for all traditionally underrepresented groups in technology (including, but not limited to, Black, Latinx, Native Americans, persons with disabilities, women and veterans), in Europe for women in technology, in India and in Africa for students who have their research papers accepted at top-tier conferences in Computer Science and related areas.

Diversity Tickets

A Travis Foundation app which helps conference organisers reach out to minority groups by offering them ticket and travel grants

Resources

Geek Feminism

Geek Feminism provides various resources, including a template for Code of Conduct

Girls in Tech

GIT aims to accelerate the growth of innovative women entering into the high-tech industry and building startups through the creation of proprietary, innovative programming and strategic global partnerships.

Global Fund for Women

A global champion for the human rights of women and girls. They use our powerful networks to find, fund, and amplify the courageous work of women who are building social movements and challenging the status quo.

Published Lists for Finding Speakers

Here are curated lists of women in the data sciece and AI space. This is an excellent reference next time there is a Call for Proposals (CFP) for conferences.

Women in Data Science
- you can subscribe to this twitter list which has 1400+ women members
Comprehensive list of Women in Machine Learning
- this list is maintained by @WiMLworkshop
- you can opt in and add your name
Twitter list of Women in Deep Learning
R Ladies Directory
Here are 508 women in the UK who could speak at your tech event
Organizations Serving Under-represented Groups in Scientific Computing, NumFOCUS
Meta Brown’s list of 180+ Outstanding Women in Analytics
Meta Brown’s list of 285 Women Who Wrote the Analytics Book
Onalytica List of Women in Tech Top Influencers in AI, Fintech, Blockchain, Big Data, IOT, EdTech, MarTech

45% of speakers are female 👍🏼@NumFOCUS @wimlds #diversityawards #rstatsnyc https://t.co/UNbqBESRa4
— Reshama Shaikh (@reshamas) April 20, 2018

Women in Open Source

Women are overwhelmingly underrepresented in open source. Here is a twitter list of Women in Open Source which was inspired by this twitter discussion.

Examples of Amplifying Women in Data

Here are some examples of how to bring visibility to women and non-binary people in the data space:

RLadies: tweet stream on International Women’s Day (IWD)
Women in Statistics: Twitter hashtag #statswomen
David Robinson tweet: Five amazing #rstats data scientists to follow if you’re not already
Amstat News: Celebrating Women in Statistics
KD Nuggets: Inspiring Women In Data

Aren't you impressed by this cool R-Lady?! https://t.co/SQKK9oVU5Q #rladies #iwd2018 pic.twitter.com/KueF3yZb5E
— IWD 2018 featured R-Ladies (@rladies_iwd2018) March 8, 2018

In honor of Women’s History Month, we are celebrating several ASA women who work in statistics and data science. These accomplished women were chosen because they inspired and influenced other women in their field. Read their biographies to learn why they chose statistics, who influenced them, and what all they have accomplished.

Slack Teams (* for women and gender minorities *)

PyLadies Global
R-Ladies
- Global: https://rladies-community-slack.herokuapp.com/
- New York City: send an email to nyc@rladies.org to request your invite
WiMLDS: email slack@wimlds.org for invite link

For Pre-college Students

Roadblocks to gender parity are present early in education. Here are some groups who are impacting the participation and retention of young women prior to college.

CoderDojo

A global network of free, volunteer-led, community-based programming clubs for young people. Anyone aged seven to seventeen can visit a Dojo where they can learn to code, build a website, create an app or a game, and explore technology in an informal, creative, and social environment.

Girls Who Code

Girls Who Code was founded by with the mission to close the gender gap in technology.

AI 4 All

The core model is educating and supporting the next generation of diverse leaders in AI through summer camps for underrepresented high school students at leading universities including Stanford, UC Berkeley, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon, and Boston University.

Supporting Organizations

You can support any of these organizations by:

Subscribing to their newsletters
Connecting on social media
Becoming familiar with their mission and projects
Sharing their mission and projects with others
Building a relationship with the organizations
Participating in events and networking
Volunteering your time
Sharing job postings and internship opportunities
Donating to their cause
Becoming a corporate sponsor

Data Science Resources

This resource list includes podcasts, conference list, newsletters, learning materials and more.

References

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