November 8, 2013
Women Interactive Founders Look to Fix Tech Industry’s Gender Issue
Everyone wants the formula for innovation. Whether you believe it’s learned or innate, BlackEnterprise.com‘s Innovator of the Week series gives you a glimpse into the lives of founders/co-founders, business execs, entrepreneurs and artists revolutionizing their respective industries through technology and social media.
When it comes to technology, it’s not a man’s world–and two Atlanta-based change agents are making that very clear.
Sabrina Harvey and Ashia Sims are kicking the door of opportunity open with the second annual Women Interactive Creative Technology Festival. Geared toward female content producers, tech enthusiasts, developers and innovators, the one-day festival equips festival attendees with the tools they need to bring their entrepreneurial vision to fruition. Held on the campus of Spelman University Saturday, November 9, the conference is expected to draw a large crowd of college students, collegiate faculty and tech producers from Atlanta and beyond, centering programming around the festival’s three pillars: interaction, education and inspiration.
Festival participants will engage with technology in the Interactive Atrium, view revolutionary media content in the signature Screening Room, experience hi-tech exhibitions from Madame You and Spelman’s all female robotics team, the SpelBots, among others, and tech talks in the Inspiration Hall, as well as participate in media/technology workshop presentations in the Education Suites. This year, keynote speakers will include James Andrews of Studio Good, Ananda Leeke, founder of Digital Sisterhood Network, and Dr. Ayoka Chenzira, filmmaker, interactive digital media artist and founding director of the Spelman College Digital Moving Image Salon. Workshops on coding, UX design, WordPress, graphic novel creation and digital advocacy will go on throughout the day, and Women Interactive’s title sponsor Microsoft will conduct a workshop on gaming.
The founding curators never imagined that Women Interactive, produced by Art of Genius Creative Technology Series, would spark from their former consulting job. With the creative tech festival a day away, BlackEnterprise.com caught up with the duo to discuss shaking up the tech space, getting more women involved in technology and what it means to be an innovator today.