Ladies Learning Code started in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in June 2011 – with a tweet. It is through the hard work and dedication of many people (many, many more than are pictured here) that we bring to the Toronto community our take on monthly workshops and other events.
Want to get involved? Contact us.
Learn more about our community partnership with The Centre for Social Innovation.
We are
marketers
developers
designers
project managers
business development managers
research technicians
marketing managers
digital strategists
community managers
consultants
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Founder + Sponsorship & Partnerships
A graduate of the Richard Ivey School of Business, Heather spent most of her first year post-graduation living in China and working towards a Masters in International Relations. That's also where she first learned to build a self-hosted Wordpress site (a blog about fitness, which she sold after a year). Upon her return to Toronto, she excelled in a corporate marketing role before her desire to join a startup became too strong to ignore. In July 2011, Heather joined a Toronto-based, three-person tech startup building on the Facebook platform. Her experience there (in a non-technical role) has made her even more determined to learn to program - so that she can contribute to building something of her own one day. Like everyone involved with Ladies Learning Code, Heather has been blown away by the support the group has received from Toronto's tech community, and beyond. If you have any comments, suggestions or ideas for Ladies Learning Code, feel free to contact Heather at heather [at] heatherpayne.ca
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Operations
Melissa was born and raised in London, Ontario. When her family purchased their first computer, she began spending her evenings and summers coding a Harry Potter fan site (by trial and error). She then entered high school, where computer science was not promoted or encouraged, and lost touch with coding. Melissa went on to graduate from the Richard Ivey School of Business and since her first startup in university, she's realized what an advantage a technical skill set would bring. Since then, she’s always dreamed of a group for women that makes coding and tech sexy and really makes it accessible to complete beginners. She thinks the buzz around the #ladieslearningcode is case in point that Toronto (and the world) needs groups like this and she couldn’t be more excited to be part of it. Ladies Learning Code is more than a resource to her, it’s a community. -
Content
Breanna was born and raised in a small village in British Columbia, and knew the big city of Toronto was calling her name when she started her own online business at the young age of 10. Breanna attended The University of Toronto, Computer Science and finished her degree in Information Technology Management at Ryerson University. In her spare time, you will almost always find Breanna "Googling" anything and everything - usually from her iPhone, reading the latest technology magazines and blogs, catching a concert, Facebooking, blogging and tweeting galore! As a woman that works in IT, she wants to help encourage other women to get involved and help make tech less intimidating and scary. -
Developer Outreach
Laura grew up all over Southwestern Ontario, moving around her whole life. Always “the new girl” Laura began to understand, pretty early on, the importance of relationships and “staying connected”. With an educational and professional background in Human Resources, Laura made the shift to the world of consulting 4 years ago and has not looked back. The link between technology and human relationships fascinates her. This has ignited a personal passion for exploring and helping others to learn, women in particular, how to leverage and evolve the technology available to us in our world today and even tomorrow. In her spare time, Laura is exploring what technology has to offer and how it can help her do her job better, much like many of Ladies Learning Code’s beginner-level students. She has recognized these untapped resources at her fingertips and is energized to help others break through into this world of opportunity!
About Our Community Partnership with
The Centre for Social Innovation
Thanks to seed funding from the mesh prize, the Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) is excited to celebrate and connect women in core technology jobs through the experience of collaboratively designing games in January 2012. Participants who are in school or are working in core tech roles from a broad range of fields are invited to bring their skills to this project, learn about game design and get creative...with added bonus of networking and sharing their interests and experiences. The goal is to build profile, opportunities and representation of women core ICT.
Recognizing that CSI and Ladies Learning Code have a shared interest in building opportunities for women in ICT and encourage young women to enter the field, CSI is delighted to welcome Ladies Learning Code as a Community Partner. This means that we're exchanging resources: for CSI, it's venue with amenities and promotion in our community; and for Ladies Learning Code it's support in social media marketing and communications. Go Team! For more info please contact Jessica Hazen, CSI Director of Stakeholder Engagement.
