Dear friends, We’re writing today to provide some information about Hive Waterloo Region’s plans for the coming summer months. Over the past year we have experienced a great deal of support from the community, for which we thank you! However, at the same time, we have found ourselves unable to fully meet numerous and varied requests for support, due to lack of resources. As a result, we will (mostly) be taking the summer off to explore how we can best make impact in our community. What does this mean? In tangible terms, here is what you can expect over the summer months: We will continue running our kids’ learn-to-code workshops at Kitchener Public Library locations We will host our planned members’ meetups on July 26 and October 25. (We’d love to have your help with this; please email us at hello@hivewr.ca!) Communications will be reduced – we will be checking messages […]
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Changing the Ratio in Tech: Let’s Do It Better, Waterloo Region
It’s not news that Silicon Valley, and the tech sector in general, has a problem with so-called “bro culture”. A quick Google search reveals some of the issues, for anyone who’s been living under a rock for the past few years: lack of diversity, the self-congratulatory claims of the field being a “meritocracy”, out-and-out discrimination, and the list goes on… Overwhelmingly most important, in my opinion, is the fact that 95% of white men in Silicon Valley don’t believe diversity is a top problem. I’m not going to waste time detailing the reasons this is important. Many, many people have shouted it from the rooftops, again and again. We need to BELIEVE them. More importantly, we need to step up and do something about it. Waterloo Region is known for its oft-cited barnraising culture, and for lending a hand to those in need. However, we need to start making sure […]
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Why Build a Hive? The Case For Digital Literacy Today
Over the last four years, Hive Waterloo Region has been evolving into what it is today, and what we envision for our future: a thriving network of individuals and organizations committed to increasing digital literacy in our community, and supporting diversity and equity in our tech sector. We’ve been able to get this far thanks to the support of hundreds of people, not only here but around the world. I’m so grateful for what we’ve been able to achieve thus far, and our team is looking forward to building on those successes. Why is our work so important? I’d like to share with you some comments from Hani, a student in Cambridge Ontario, about why it matters to her: “[It] teaches girls about coding so maybe, they can become programmers when they get older. They teach you things like how to make a website and if you’re making a website, how […]
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