Women Who Code workshop on "Write your own programming language"

June 29, 2017 [Tech]

On Wednesday 28th June 2017 a group of people from OpenMarket went to the Fora office space in Clerkenwell, London to run a workshop with the Women Who Code group, who work to help women achieve their career goals.

OpenMarket provided the workshop "Write your own programming language" and funded the food, and the venue was provided gratis by Fora.

We started the evening with some networking and food:

networking food

but most of the time was spent coding:

coding

with lots of help from our OpenMarket helpers:

helpers

The feedback we got was very positive:

Thanks @andybalaam for that great Write Your Own Programming Language workshop! & thanks @openmarket and @fora_space for sponsoring/hosting! pic.twitter.com/6U0DClAHMD

— Women Who Code LDN (@WWCLondon) June 28, 2017

"It's all about the cool" Thx @andybalaam
Great workshop @WomenWhoCode @coderinheels pic.twitter.com/El3bAeRtK4

— Sandrine Pataut (@SPataut) June 28, 2017

Everyone seemed to be having fun, so we hope we might get invited back to do more in future.

Why do this?

At OpenMarket we want to improve our diversity, and we have started by looking at gender diversity specifically. By being involved with events like this we hope to learn how we can make our company better at welcoming and supporting employees, encourage people from under-represented groups to apply to work here, and improve the general climate in our industry.

Thank you

A huge thank you to the OpenMarket people (from London and Guadalajara!) who helped out - I think people felt welcome and there was plenty of help available for the attendees - you did a great job.

Thank you also for the great response from everyone in our London office - several people in the office wanted to come but couldn't make it on the night - I am hoping we will get more opportunities in future.

We're also really grateful to OpenMarket for funding the food, to Fora for providing the space, and to Women Who Code for doing such great work to improve our industry.

[Photos by David Lawson.]