Over the last 4 years the team here at DevTO have been incredibly privileged and fortunate to be able to successfully throw a recurring monthly technology meetup, bringing together members of the Toronto tech community from all races, genders and walks of life. It has been one of the primary goals of the group since we started. To create an open and welcoming space for everyone in our community.

DevTO has become more of a platform than any of us could ever imagine. As with most power, it comes with a great deal of responsibility. With this recent realization of the power of our platform we’ve started to think of ways that this platform can be used for the overall benefit of the community we love.

Last year, #DevTO began to discuss the idea of organizing bigger events, calling on speakers from all over the world, to talk to our rich and diverse developer community. We wanted to ensure that these events would be meaningful, motivating and as inspirational as possible. We combed over a list of our more stand out meet ups, and we came to an easy and unanimous decision.

In a follow up to #DevTO’s very engaging WOMEN IN STEM meetup from summer 2014, we are very proud to announce our 1st Annual International Women’s Day Talks. On such a pivotal day, #DevTO wanted to celebrate the past and ongoing accomplishments and contributions of women in STEM with a present day talk from these gifted ladies who have decades of combined work experience in technology.

We hope that you will join us in celebrating this important occasion, but before getting to ticket’s and sponsor information, we’d like you to meet the speakers for this inaugural event!

SPEAKERS:

Jen Simmons is a NY based web developer, consultant, trainer and an award winning speaker. Her beginnings are rooted in the earliest times of web, getting her start in 1996. In her career, her freelance company has enlisted clients the likes of CERN, W3C, Google & the New York Stock Exchange to name a few.

Joining us from Montreal, will be UX & Responsive design specialist Clarissa Peterson. Clarissa is a web developer, and co-founder of Peterson/Kandy, a Montreal-based digital consultancy specializing in creating responsive websites.

Anita Clarke is the proprietress and Editor In Chief of the popular Toronto fashion blog, I want – I got. She’s been called a Toronto Fashion Hero by Now Magazine and one of Hello Canada’s Best Dressed. In addition to her Fashion tastemaker accomplishments, she’s a certified software test engineer with over 12 years of experience as a QA Lead and currently works for one of Canada’s top financial institutions.

Mandy Gilbert is the CEO of Creative Niche, a Toronto-based staffing, recruitment and executive search firm focused on the advertising, design, digital, data, marketing and social media fields. Recognized as one of Canada’s leading women entrepreneurs in recent years, Mandy is a passionate entrepreneur whose focus on international growth and embrace of cutting-edge technology has helped entrench Creative Niche as a leader in its field.