SWiT boosts meetup network by aligning with Edinburgh coders – Scottish Business News

SCOTLAND Women in Technology (SWiT) has today announced that it has agreed a strategic alignment with the meetup network, Women Who Code Edinburgh (WWCode), which will see it become part of SWiT.  

Launched in Edinburgh in 2017, WWCode Edinburgh was founded by director’s Maria Gutierrez, Ceri Shaw and Lea Savage. It was forced to pause its membership and events when its previous supporter, the Women Who Code charity, closed due to a lack of funding.  

Until it paused in activity, WWCode Edinburgh had an active membership of 3,000 women working in the Scottish tech ecosystem and had hosted 100 events over seven years.  

With such a thriving membership and a desire to continue to champion collaboration, innovation and inclusivity between women working within the Scottish tech ecosystem, WWCode Edinburgh was keen to continue the success the group had enjoyed and approached SWiT to become its new partner. 

As part of the alignment, the current directors of WWCode Edinburgh – Lea Savage,Ceri Shaw, Stephanie Boyle and Dr. Aamani Budhota – will continue to run the hugely successful technical meetups under the SWiT brand which provide a forum to provide a supportive and empowering environment for networking, skill-building, and ideas exchange. 

Silka Patel, Founder and Chair of Scotland Women in Technology, said: “Having attended several of WWCode Edinburgh’s events in the past, the SWiT board was upset when it heard that WWCode would have to wrap up its Edinburgh chapter when its previous supporter closed. Given the immense value that women bring to tech organisations and the rate at which we see women dropping out of the sector due to a variety of reasons, we felt compelled to protect the hugely valuable work that WWCode Edinburgh had done over the last seven years. 

“In addition to the inclusion of the meetups under the SWiT umbrella, we are pleased to welcome Lea Savage, a former Director of WWCode Edinburgh to the SWiT board.” 

Lea Savage, newly appointed SWiT Board Member and Computer Scientist at Adobe, added: “When we were looking to the future of WWCode Edinburgh, we wanted to engage with an organisation that shared our values and mission. We had long admired the work that SWiT does to champion and inspire women working in the Scottish tech ecosystem and felt that there was a lot of crossover with our values. After approaching them to understand how we could work together, we were over the moon when they said they would welcome us into the SWiT family. The team and I are already planning our first meetup, and we cannot wait to create a new programme for all our members.” 

Separately, SWiT has partnered with Nine Twenty Recruitment to create a new Scotland Women in AI community established to increase visibility and create opportunities in the rapidly evolving field. It will hold its inaugural event at the University of Edinburgh (Paterson’s Land) on Wednesday 18th September. The evening event will include networking with fellow AI enthusiasts as well as guest speaker, Dr. Aamani Budhota, who will provide insight into ‘A Day in the Life of an AI Scientist.’ Tickets for the free event are available now here.