The Women of MacWorld

As I was walking around the MacWorld Expo yesterday and this morning, it struck me that there seems to be a fairly even balance between men and women attending the event. This is a notable change from many of the tech events that I’ve attended over the years where I frequently find myself to be the lone gal in a group of guys. That got me wondering whether women were also equally represented as speakers at MacWorld.

A quick perusal of the conference speakers’ schedule reveals that the speaking part of the event continues to be male-dominated. However, there are some women speaking throughout the week. Here is some more information about the women that I found on the schedule:

– Sandee Cohen, Adobe Creative Suite. Sandee is a graphics curriculum coordinator in New York City educating students at the New School University Computer Instruction Center. She has authored numerous books and articles and is a regular speaker at MacWorld. Her presentation is part of MacWorld’s Power Tools Conference.

– Andrina Kelly, Lucid System Administration; Clear Thoughts on a Very Complex Occupation. Andrina is the manager of IronGate Server Management and Consulting’s professional services team. Her presentation is part of MacWorld’s Mac IT Conference.

– Sara Porter. She is presenting twice, once on RSync Automatically (Automatic Backup for Mac OS X) and Version Control via Workgroup Services (Tracking File Changes Automatically). Her presentations are part of MacWorld’s Users Conference.

– Sheridan Jones, Introducing Office 2008 for Mac: Form, Meet Functionality. She works at Microsoft as a Macintosh Business Unit Marketing Manager. She has an additional MacWorld presentation in the Hands-On Mac Labs.

– Tonya Engst, Get Smart About the Leopard Finder. Tonya works at TidBITS Publishing as their Editor-in-chief. Her presentation is part of MacWorld’s Users Conference.

– Pam Lefkowitz. With over twenty years of work experience in computers, Pam has the skills to work as a consultant. She is one of three speakers for iChat, a presentation that is part of the Users Conference.

– Lesa King, Beginner Digital Photography Day. Lesa founded GraphicReporter.com, a creative tutorial site. This presentation is part of the Specialty Programs presentation.

– Donna Dubinsky, MacWorld Live! Donna is the CEO and co-founder of Numenta Inc. This is one of the featured presentations at MacWorld Expo this year.

These are some of the women that are making their mark at MacWorld this year. In addition, there is a “Women in Mac IT” presentation which focuses specifically on the work of women in the field. The speakers for this presentation are Gail M. Murphy, Lorene Romero, Ronnie A. Roche, and Susan Chiz Berenguer. All of these women are helping to bring women in the industry into the spotlight.

*Note – I haven’t had the chance to meet any of these speakers myself so the information found here is based off a basic Internet search. I’d love to be corrected if anything looks wrong – or if I missed reporting on any of the women speaking at the conference!