Last weekend at DrupalCampLA we had a great turnout of women using Drupal, including a number of technical presentations led by women! Out of 66 sessions, 13 were presented by women (this includes Brenda Boggs' "The Doctor Is In" shift at the Drupalchix table and events such as that). 7 of those sessions were technical in nature, and while many of them were aimed at those new to Drupal, they were valuable topics such as Views, Upgrading from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6, and Site Migration.
We are very happy with this turnout and look forward to making it a trend at DrupalCampLA and other camps in the future!
Additionally, we held a panel discussion about attracting and retaining women in the drupal community. That conversation covered many important topics and lasted for an hour and a half. I have edited that hour and a half down to 30 minutes of highlights, which can be heard/downloaded here:
http://2009.drupalcampla.com/drupalchix/panel/questions
We hope you take part in the conversation, which continues in the form of comments and questions on the drupalcampla.com website!
A special thank you to Nicole Bluto, who co-organized the drupalchix track with me, Brenda Boggs and Crystal Williams, who were active at the camp and participated eloquently in the discussion, Amy Cham, who acted as a sounding board during the planning stage, Emma Jane Hogbin and Heather Fox at Prentice Hall, who made it possible for drupalchix to offer cool raffle prizes at the camp in the form of Emma Jane's awesome book, Front End Drupal, as well as a couple other books from Prentice Hall, Beck Farris who wowed the camp with her business advice, and to all the women who helped out at the drupalchix table. And thanks to Mike Stewart for encouraging Nicole and me to do this in the first place.