Hacker News Reader

Comment by polishninja | Hacker News Reader

It's great to see this type of event in Baghdad. Although a small event of 17 people, it looks like there were some big company names there or on conference call; Phizer, The State Department, Zain, etc.

I think these type of tech community events are important in building an open, collaborating tech environment. I hope they can continue to have these events and find more sponsors. It's a great way to introduce tech and programming to people who think it's too complicated to understand. Show them it is accessible, show them the resources available, and let them find the joy of building something.

Keep up the good work Ali and Marwan.

View on HN

They also have a gender ratio that's often unimaginable for equivalent events in Silicon Valley. Congratulations to all organizers! This is great to see.

That's a good point actually. I live in the UAE, and whenever I attend a college-level engineering or programming competition, I notice that there is always a good ratio of male to female participants - almost 3:1 in some cases.

Furthermore, in my gender segregated university, the ratio of male to female EE students is 1:1. The ratio for IT students is, by my estimates, 1:5 at the very least. Yes, 5 females for every male.

Based on what I've heard and read online, this is quite different from how it is in the US specifically, where gender inequality in STEM fields is a big deal. Here, and in other Arab countries from my experience, it's quite the opposite: more women take the STEM path than men do!

> Based on what I've heard and read online, this is quite different from how it is in the US specifically, where gender inequality in STEM fields is a big deal.

1:5 sounds like gender inequality to me.

I meant women in STEM mate. I thought that was clear from context, and I mentioned the problem in the US in the same sentence.

What they are saying is that a 5:1 gender ratio can't be equal, whichever way around it is.

I thought my point was clear from context.

Not sure why this got downvoted. Gender inequality goes both ways.

Maybe by many standards 1:5 ratio sounds great and all, but such a huge difference is a problem and university should research why males are not going towards those jobs/professions.

If you find yourself in a tech context with many more women than you'd expect, you're probably in a third world country.

Why is that?

Poverty, its much harder to self select yourself out of well paying jobs.

You make it sound like that's a bad thing.

If that's how you want to interpret it.

Great point! This joins a host of other coding bootcamps springing up in places with small (but increasing) tech sector e.g Code school in Kabul, Code for Pakistan etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com