Introducing free memberships for womxn who code
In the 3 years that we have been active, we have used the term “members” pretty loosely. This is something we have been working on for quite a while and now we are ready to launch community memberships! 🎉 These memberships are free of charge, but not open to all. After all, we are still a community for womxn who code in Belgium 🇧🇪 .
Looking back at the core elements of our organisation
From early on our goal has been to support, inspire and motivate womxn who code. By launching free memberships, we believe that we can do a better job at reaching these goals.
So far the following initiatives have been taken:
- creating/maintaining a safe space, both offline and online
- create opportunities to start or improve public speaking skills
- a monthly newsletter, filled with curated materials
- a new interview each month, where we put a focus on Belgian womxn who code and their story
- organising all kinds of womxn-only events to stimulate networking and friendships between members
Most of these initiatives have had a very positive impact on the people we have spoken with so far and so we feel this is a good direction for us to move forward in. Memberships are a part of that direction and they will help us grow our community.
So what does this membership entail?
As mentioned before, memberships will be free of charge and will contain some extra benefits.
The benefits we are offering on launch are as follows:
- Become a part of our private online community space and network
- Connect with fellow peers from all over Belgium
- Share experiences and expertise
- Talk off the record about professional topics & issues
- Engage in informal discussions about a broad range of topics & interests
- Be supported and inspired by fellow peers
- Get notified of ALL upcoming community events
- A space where you can ask advice and feedback on how to improve your professional profile
- Get access to member-only events such as:
- Online network events
- Lady dinners*
- Game sessions
- Pub nights*
- Occasional discounts for conferences and workshops
And possibly more can be added in the future with the help of members and volunteers.
*Temporarily postponed due pandemic
Who can apply for a membership?
Becoming a member of the women.code(be) community is open to all womxn who code, who are living in Belgium.
More specifically this means we welcome anyone who is an active programmer. This can be any of the following descriptions we listed:
- a college or university student enrolled in a tech specialisation (IT, IMD, NMCT, Devine DAE, MCT, Applied Informatics…)
- enrolled in a bootcamp or other training program focused on coding
- a professional developer or technical engineer (web, software, games…)
- a professional in another specialisation but coding is an important part of your job
- a hobby coder (you frequently write code for personal or community projects)
What about allies, partners, womxn who don’t code and so on?
We recently conducted an online poll to see wether there was any interest in a public community space. The good news is that 90% of the participants voted yes!
So in response, we created a public space for everyone who is not eligible for a community membership but still wants to show support or interest in our community. Allies, partners, collaborators, womxn in tech who don’t code or someone looking into transitioning into a coding position, feel free to join our public server.
To join simply use this invite-link
