HER+Data was founded in Dublin, Ireland in February 2017 by Karen Church – that’s me :). We had our kick-off event in Intercom in May 2017 where four data women – Niamh Kirk, Flora Devlin, Martina Naughton and I – shared our inspiring and diverse career stories in the form of short lightning talks, highlighting the various paths and roles available in Analytics & Data Science. Before the kick-off, I really wasn’t sure what would happen. Would people turn up? Would members find the event interesting and useful? Would people connect, engage and share with each other? On that night in May > 30 women in analytics, data science and machine learning attended! The conversation flowed, we laughed, we learned and we haven’t looked back since!
HER+Data aims to bring together women or people who identify as female who work with and love data (or who aspire to work with data) – to support one another, share experiences and knowledge, establish meaningful connections and talk data. We want to connect, support and promote women working in the fields of Analytics & Data Science and to inspire more amazing women to work pursue a career in this area. The group was was originally called XX+Data, however in order to very explicitly reflect that the community is open to people who identify as female we updated our name to HER+Data.
It’s been such an amazing and rewarding journey so far and I’m so excited to see where the community will go over the next few months. If you’re interested in learning more, joining our community or setting up your own chapter, reach out on twitter.