Women Developers Flex Their Coding Muscles at YourStory App Meet-up

Microsoft Bangalore office played host to the country’s first App-development workshop for women on the 11th of February 2012. On a Saturday morning, women from diverse backgrounds, from homemakers to working professionals took part in the event. Over 50 women app developers participated in an interactive workshop by Harish Vaidyanathan, Director, Evangelism at Microsoft. “There are over 800 million mobile phone users in the country today. The transition from click platform to touch screen is almost inevitable. And, in most households, women are the ones who drive the purchasing decision,” said Harish emphasizing that women developers are better at understanding the needs of the women end users.Later, Rashmi Sachan, co-founder of Fliplog, shared her entrepreneurial journey and discussed challenges and opportunities for women in the mobile application space. Organized by YourStory.in and Microsoft, the day long session focused on how to develop windows phone apps and more importantly gave a platform for the women developers to showcase their work.

Also encouraging women developers Rashmi said, “This is not a time to sit passively and watch. It is time we innovate our own consumption.”

Srividya co-founder of Pixelmat who was one of the attendees shared her experience at the workshop: “I believe this is the first time that an event on Mobile Apps exclusively targeted towards women has been held in India. It was a refreshing change to meet actual people in a company (Microsoft) and to understand first-hand their perspectives on the market”.

At the mobile app development workshop, I was not amazed, but happy to find that even in a sector like this, men and women are at fierce battle. The outcome is what makes life more comfortable for us! After all, who can understand what a woman wants better than a woman?

- Krishnakali Sengupta