The Girl Develop It (GDI) Atlanta chapter just turned one and celebrated with a bang during their anniversary party on September 17th. Over the past year, the nonprofit hosted numerous Code & Coffee events and taught affordable classes on web and software development to women throughout the city. GDI Atlanta has nothing to be shy about – check out highlights from their incredible year and meet the leading ladies making it all happen:
- Grew to 700+ members
- Completed 7 classes ranging from Intro to HTML/CSS to Intro to Ruby (many of which sold out within one week)
- Hosted 7 Code & Coffee’s which helped promote classes, find teachers, grow the chapter, and advise students on personal projects and tech careers
- Helped countless women find careers in the tech world
- Awarded a WIT technology grant to help fund the chapter
- Grew chapter leadership from one to three
THE LEADING LADIES OF GDI ATLANTA
JEN MARTIN
Jen Martin is the Product Marketing Manager for Dominion Dealer Solutions, a technology solutions provider for automotives. In her spare time she is always getting involved in side projects, which included starting Girl Develop It when she lived in Atlanta. Being passionate about the group, she has continued to support it from Cincinnati, and helping the Cincinnati chapter when possible. Having a successful one year anniversary party is a dream come true.
What are your best technical or creative skills?
When I graduated college, I had a degree in graphic design and marketing. After getting involved in the advertising world, I fell in love with technology and user experience. That love pushed me to sign up for Girl Develop It classes in Cincinnati where I learned HTML/CSS and Javascript. These classes allowed me to not only manage my own websites, but to better talk to the tech teams I interacted with everyday at my day job, which in turn makes for a better product and successful projects.
What’s next on your list to learn?
Ruby. 100%. The women in the chapter have inspired me. If these ladies can be fearless and redesign their careers in 2015, I have no excuse!
CARMELLA PHILLIPS
Carmella Phillips is a full stack web application developer who is mostly self taught or learned on the job. After experiencing an all women’s cycling group, she was in search of the same encouragement in software development. That’s when she found out Girl Develop It had opened a chapter in Atlanta. She started out by teaching the chapters first JavaScript class – later becoming a chapter leader. If she can get just one more woman to join the dev team she feels like she is making progress towards changing this male dominated field.
What are your best technical or creative skills?
I love research and development. I have always been a starter and I like to build things. Technology feeds both of these needs. When I spot something that looks interesting to me, I jump in head first. If you ever need someone to do some research and development for almost any topic. I am your girl.
What’s next on your list to learn?
Node.js, I would like to take my JavaScript skills to the server-side!
JULIE TAYLOR
Julie Taylor is a freelance front end developer and experience designer. She volunteers at GDI Atlanta as a co-leader.
What are your best technical or creative skills?
My expertise is in prototyping, testing, and building user friendly experiences for ecommerce websites. With 18+ years writing custom HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, I’ve helped create websites of all types, customer-facing UIs, advertising campaigns, and email marketing programs within both corporate, startup, and freelance environments.
What’s next on your list to learn?
I would love to learn how to be a stronger community leader and mentor. I’m very interested in 3D printing design and technology.
Follow Girl Develop It Atlanta and stay up-to-date on their classes and events:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GDIAtlanta
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GDIAtlanta
Instagram: https://instagram.com/gdi_atlanta/
Google+: https://plus.google.com/girldevelopit
