Women in Tech Festival speaker: We need to swing the pendulum on gender diversity

In a video filmed ahead of the event, Julie Fedele opens up on unconscious bias in the tech industry and what she learned from the failure of her previous tech startup

A speaker at the upcoming Women in Tech Festival UK 2019 has spoken of the need to "swing the pendulum" when it comes to gender diversity in the tech market.

In a video filmed ahead of the event, which will take place at The Brewery in London on 17 September, Julie Fedele said she was regularly the only female panellists at events.

"I ask the question of why there is only one female," says Fedele, who recently founded startup TwoFeetIn and is also principal consultant at Thoughtworks.

"I feel like we do in some cases need to swing the pendulum a little further and continue to bring up this issue. People are brought up with the belief that this is the way society operates, so if we don't bring to light what's happening people will continue to think it's okay.

"I'm also quite passionate about ageism in tech, which is equally something you see all the time, particularly in software engineers: ‘we want to hire 21,22 year olds'. But what about 50 year-old women who are retraining themselves to be software engineers? If we don't put light on the issue history will repeat itself."

In the video, Fedele also talks about the failure of her previous venture, Popping Up.

"I learned a lot about myself in terms of resilience," she says.