Bardot Smith

As the technology and financial infrastructure converges, access to capital is increasingly linked to these industries. As loopholes are exploited, traditional industry gatekeepers have less and less influence over the trajectory of the industry. Wall Street does not have a choice to adopt technologies; technology is enveloping finance, becoming the medium and the mode of money itself. And yet: hardly a female founder to be seen.

In the span of a week last fall, a number of events happened that made me question, for the first time, whether or not I wanted to stay in tech. Kathy Sierra left Twitter after continued harassment, Brianna Wu was doxxed after openly speaking out against the Gamergate movement, and Julie Pagano penned a post about leaving the tech community. At the time, I was beginning to see myself as a developer and as someone who could help others get access to what I now had.

A little over a year ago I attended a programming workshop for women, hosted by an open source organization. I got involved in the organization afterwards and started volunteering my time: planning other workshops, contributing to their blog and resources. I was changing careers at that time, and had heard that contributing to open source would look good on my resume.