Women in Tech is a topic close to Clearleft’s heart all year round. We’re proud to buck the trend in terms of our workforce all the way up to our leadership team. But it’s finding the time to progress our industry beyond their project workload that we want to celebrate.

Gender equality in the workforce brings well known benefits - better communication, better support - but above all, being better at making amazing things happen. This month, as part of Spring Forward (a month-long celebration of the role of women in digital culture) two of our team are doing just that. They’re challenging the very nature of the industry by breaking down barriers.

Ladies that UX

Our UX Designer Hana runs the Brighton arm of Ladies that UX, a monthly meet up for ladies in the UX community to share, collaborate, and build their UX skills. This group is also open to women who are interested in UX and would like to learn in a friendly environment.

On March 6th she is hosting a talk focusing on the basics of UX. Inspired by Paul Adam talk at UX London “The end of naval gazing”. He notes that:

It takes everyone to build a great product."

She wants to bring together disciplines, she’s inviting people across UX, Dev, Sales, Project Managers and Marketing to tackle some hands-on UX tools and exercises, to boost shared understanding and deliver a better experience that puts the user at the centre of our universe.

Ladies that UX brighton

codebar

Cassie is one of our front-end developers, she also hosts codebar Brighton – a weekly meetup to encourage groups underrepresented in tech to get into coding. Aiming to increase diversity in the tech industry the group cleverly brings together coding newbies with developers from across Brighton to mentor them (over pizza).

Further breaking down barriers she has also just launched codebar talks, where you’re encouraged to leave behind the laptop and attend a friendly evening of progressive chats around digital.

A group gathered for codebar talks Brighton

There are a whole host of other events running throughout March in parallel with Women’s History Month. We’re proud to be one of sponsor the event sponsors and to host many of the inspiring sessions downstairs at 68 Middle Street.

These aren’t just events about and for women, they are changing the way we work as businesses for the better, and that’s what we’ll be celebrating this International Women’s Day.