Laura Gaetano

I started being more interested in the issue of women and diversity in tech after landing a web developer job in 2013 in an all-male company; having come from the music industry, which is also primarily male, I realised that this wasn't a problem which was confined to the music, journalism, or art industries (the main areas I was interested in at the time) and that this problem was everywhere. I decided to actively try and make a change by coaching at programming events and founding local groups for women to get together and learn to program. Among other things, I co-organised Rails Girls Summer of Code — a program which offers women 3-month scholarships to work on Open Source software — and managed projects at Travis Foundation, a non-profit initiative that focused the Open Source community. I'm now a UI/UX designer with a huge love for accessibility. I like owls, facts about NASA and space, reading, travelling, and melodic hardcore music.