Agnès Crepet, Digital Woman and MIX-IT volunteer
Femmes du Numérique:To begin with, what is your definition of “digital”?
Agnès Crepet:For me, digital is everything to do with new technologies, the Internet being one of the most representative tools. I was a teenager when the Internet became part of everyone’s daily life. It opened up an incredible number of perspectives for me, and I’m lucky to have grown up in an era when digital technology exploded.
FDN:Women, an opportunity for digital. Digital, an opportunity for women. What do you think about it? Why did you choose this sector? What kind of digital job do you do?
AC: Women are definitely a strength in the digital sector. I’m very sensitive to diversity issues in the IT world. Women are under-represented in this world. I thought the situation was the same all over the world until I went on a world tour in 2011 and visited Asia in particular.
I gave a few computer conferences in Indonesia, and over half the audience there were women! I thought we should take inspiration from their actions to change the trend, particularly in France. I’ve been involved for a long time in various actions to try and promote the visibility of women in the high-tech world, both in Duchess France and within the MIX-IT association.
As for whether digital is a real opportunity for women. Yes, I think it can be, but when it comes to technical jobs in the digital sector – like mine, for example, I’m a software developer/architect – there’s still a long way to go before many women choose this sector. Certain prejudices are rooted in the family and in society, and come to the fore when young girls choose a training course. Parents or teachers may sometimes unconsciously steer them away from overly technical training, which would lead to traditionally male professions where the presence of women is not yet fully accepted.
What’s more, certain technical professions, such as IT, suffer from certain stereotypes. The computer scientist is often portrayed as a young, white, heterosexual male, a fan of universes such as heroïc-fantasy and video games. These universes are often filled with predominantly male references, where girls have little place. When they are represented, it’s often in a degrading way. All this does not encourage young girls to choose the profession of developer in particular. But with DuchessFrance, an association I’m involved with, we’re trying to reverse this trend. Duchess France is a group designed to put women in IT in touch with each other. We’re trying to raise the profile of women in IT.
One of Duchess France’s main missions is to see more women take the floor at technical conferences (<5%), and to this end we organize coaching sessions to prepare them. Finally, we believe that role models are essential to inspire, motivate and help other women – whether students or those undergoing retraining – to project themselves into the technical fields of IT.
To this end, we publish portraits of women who talk about their jobs, their passion for code and technology – in short, our role models!
FDN:In addition to your professional activity, you are also involved in social and humanitarian work on a voluntary basis. How do you reconcile the two? Does it contribute to your balance?
AC :It’s not always easy! I’m involved in several associations in the digital sector, but I also sometimes give talks as a speaker, and that requires a lot of preparation time. I also belong to a cultural association in my town, Avataria.
And I have two young children (6 months and 2 years old), so of course they keep me most busy 😉 But I’m lucky enough to have a partner who’s involved in family life and knows how to be there when my extra-professional activities take up a lot of space! He’s the one who doesn’t work on Wednesdays, for example, to look after the children. Without this sharing of tasks, I wouldn’t be able to do half of what I do today, and that’s a big part of my balance!
FDN:Tell us about the association you’re involved with. What does it do? What is your mission?
AC :MIX-IT is an association founded in 2010. For the past 5 years, it has organized an annual conference in Lyon dedicated to technological innovation. This is a major event in the world of high-tech: every year, over 500 participants and more than 50 speakers from all over the world come together over two days.
One of MIX-IT’s core values is to promote gender diversity (from which it takes its name!), not just technological diversity, but above all gender diversity within the IT world. We’re working hard to ensure that the program includes a large number of female speakers, as well as people from different cultural backgrounds. There’s a definite lack of diversity in IT, and we’re trying to help reverse the trend.
For example, at the 2014 event, the two main keynotes were given by the American Ashe Dryden, author of the book “The Diverse Team”, and by Horacio Lassey-Assiakoley from Togo, who was visiting Europe for the first time. We are also promoting a very low entry fee for these two days of conferences (50 euros), which is very rare for an IT event of this type, in order to remain accessible to as many people as possible.
At Mix-IT, like all the other organizing members, I wear all sorts of hats, from the most rewarding to the least rewarding: looking for sponsors and speakers, but also distributing sandwiches and coffee!
FDN:How do you defend gender equality in your professional, personal and community life?
AC :I practice gender equality in everything I do, and that’s the best way for me to defend it! In my associative activities, in my professional life and, of course, at home!
The fact that fathers are just as involved as mothers in early childhood care, for example, means that women have more time to invest in what they want to do, making them more visible and more present in sectors where we’re not used to seeing them!
FDN:What advice would you give to a young woman hesitating to work or start a business in the digital sector?
AC :Go for it! This is a fast-changing sector where anything is possible! It’s also one that needs to be invented, and women have a key role to play in giving it new perspectives!
Biography
A software developer and architect for almost 15 years, I co-founded the cooperative companyNinjaSquaden2012 with three other passionate developers. I was elected Java Champion, a title awarded by their peers to people who are active and recognized in the Java language community. Of the hundred or so people worldwide who have held this title since 2005, only seven are French, and I’m (for the moment!) the only woman. Because I love learning and sharing, I’ve been very active in developer communities for several years. I’m one of the organizing members ofDuchessFrance, an association dedicated to the promotion of women developers. I’m also in charge of the LyonJava User Group, an association offering one conference a month in Lyon on software development topics, mainly in the Java language ecosystem. And I founded theMix-ITassociation, which has been organizing the conference of the same name in Lyon since 2011.