At this evening meeting in London, we’ll be welcoming three women, all of whom are pursuing a career in open source.  This is a joint meeting with BCS Women and the UK Open Source Hardware User Group.

Tea/coffee will be served from 6pm, with the meeting starting at 6:30pm. Each talk will last 30 minutes and include plenty of time for questions. We look forward to seeing you there.

We shall be livestreaming via GoTomeeting.

Please join the meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone:

https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/543255269

You can also dial in using your phone:

United Kingdom (Toll Free): 0 800 389 5276 
United Kingdom: +44 20 3713 5011 
Access Code: 543-255-269 

New to GoToMeeting? Get the app now and be ready when your first meeting starts:
https://global.gotomeeting.com/install/543255269

We shall also video the talks for later posting on YouTube for those who are unable to make it.

Prototyping Wearables with Open Source

Rain Ashford, Goldsmiths University

In this presentation will discuss how open source hardware and its communities aided me in the pursuit of creating wearable technology, which led to me returning to academia and doctoral research. I will share some of my research into responsive and emotive wearable technology including examples of prototypes and research into audiences, which focused on the preferences of women users.

I am a creative technologist, designer and researcher working in the field of wearable technology. My PhD research investigated how wearables can be used to create new forms of nonverbal communication using physiological and environmental data. This research was selected for a Convocation Trust Student Entrepreneur Award and I was a finalist in EPSRC’s UK ICT Pioneers Competition. I have presented and exhibited my work extensively in the UK and internationally in Europe, Asia and USA. Previously I worked at the BBC where I was a senior producer and technologist, co-running the BBC’s open innovation project, BBC Backstage. I also organise events and workshops on technology topics including wearables, gaming and diversity, for example I was organiser of the BBC Women in Technology group and Women In Computing Mentor at Goldsmiths. rainycatz.wordpress.com

Starting out in open source

Pietra F T Madio, Brockenhurst College

Pietra F. T. Madio is a sixth form student from Brazil at Brockenhurst College. She has been working as an intern for Embecosm since November 2018. Pietra is currently undertaking research and implementation of neural networks using Keras and TensorFlow. She’s working towards progressing to university to study Computer Science.

A more inclusive way of looking at open source projects

Professor Cornelia Boldyreff, University of Greenwich

In this talk, I shall talk about a recent PhD I examined, “Episodic Volunteering in Open Source” by Ann Barcomb.

Cornelia Boldyreff lives in Greenwich and is a Visiting Professor at the University of Greenwich in the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences. She was previously the Associate Dean (Research and Enterprise) at the School of Architecture, Computing and Engineering at the University of East London from 2009 – February 2013.

Cornelia gained her PhD in Software Engineering from the University of Durham where she worked from 1992; she was a Reader in the Computer Science Department when she left.
In 2004 she moved to the University of Lincoln to become the first Professor of Software Engineering at the university, where she co-founded and directed the Centre for Research in Open Source Software.

She has over 25 years’ experience in software engineering research and has published extensively on her research in the field. She is a Fellow of the British Computer Society, and a founding committee member of the BCSWomen Specialist Group, a committee member of the BCS e-Learning Specialist Group, and since 2013 she has chaired the BCS Open Source Specialist Group. She has been actively campaigning for more women in STEM throughout her career.  Together with Miriam Joy Morris and Dr Yasmine Arafa, she founded the start-up, ebartex Ltd, and together they are developing a new digital bartering currency, ebarts.