Women at developer conferences

We in India are finally taking cognizance of having a woman representative on the Board, giving it the much needed diversity. But in USA, the current buzz is about which company has women addressing keynote conferences.

Apple is in news currently on account of its Worldwide Developers Conference where the world waits with bated breath to see what new apps and operating systems get announced/updated. But the much bigger news this time was that after 2010, for the first time in five years, women took stage to present some significant presentations. Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple Pay, appeared before the crowd of software developers and journalists on Monday to discuss progress in mobile payments. A second woman, Susan Prescott, presented on Apple's forthcoming News app. The last time a woman had presented was in 2010, when Zynga's Jen Herman gave a demonstration of the game Farmville.

On the other hand, Google almost always has women presenting at such important developer conferences; in fact the only time it did not have a single woman make any presentation was in 2011. But when it comes to diversity at workforce, Apple and Google, 30% of both their workforce comprises of women. Apple has more women in tech positions that Google and on the Board – Apple has two, Google has three.

What is news here is that though America probably has the most “equal” laws when it comes to men and women, the fact that such news – of women making presentations at developer conferences, is big news is itself an irony.