There’s an event coming up in Philly this weekend that I’ve been excited about since I caught wind that it was an idea floating around — ELA Conf. “ELA” stands for Empowerment, Leadership, Action, and the conference’s aim is to increase the number of women leading, speaking, and teaching in the technology space.
Back when I was in the throes of planning for BarCamp, I decided that I was done organizing, volunteering, and submitting proposals to conferences for the rest of the year. But when the opportunity to moderate a panel at ELA Conf popped up, I was really excited to say yes.
I’ll be moderating the panel on impostor syndrome with some rad women: Brianna Morgan, Elise Wei, and Arti Walker-Peddakotla. Brianna did a little preview of the talk with Amanda Clark at BarCamp last weekend (full disclosure: Amanda & I are both BarCamp organizers), and she wrote this awesome piece on impostor syndrome for Technically Philly.
As Dawn McDougall, another ELA Conf speaker and the executive director of Code for Philly, wrote, “If you’re a women doing cool things and not talking about them, you need ELA Conf.” I’m chronically bad at talking about all the tons and tons of things I’m doing. By not talking about them, I’m not doing myself any favors. I’m just running myself ragged and no one really knows about it.
I’m fully convinced that if I hadn’t moved to Philadelphia when I did, I wouldn’t be working as a web developer now. I’d probably still be afraid to learn to code. The tech community is incredibly supportive, and the Philadelphia chapter of Girl Develop It is the largest tech meetup in the city, which is super rad. I love that this event is drawing speakers and attendees even from outside of the Philadelphia region, and I’m so excited to spend the weekend learning from, encouraging, and getting to know everyone at the conference.
As a speaker, I also have two tickets to give out! If you’re on the fence about going, please contact me and let’s work something out! I’d love to see you there!
P.S. While we’re on the subject of speaking, I was recently interviewed on Joyce Akiko’s podcast! We chatted about learning, freelancing, and how to do it all while also holding down a full-time job. Check it out!
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