Box UK: BBC Innovation Labs Blog

Continuing with the BBC connection, we’re really pleased to announce the first speaker for the next Cardiff Web Scene Meet-Up. Matthew Cashmore, Senior Research Producer for BBC Future Media and Technology, Research and Innovation who will be talking about ‘BBC Backstage’ and ‘Mashed’ at Alexandra Palace and just another quick reminder that you’ll also have the opportunity to sign up for the ‘Cardiff Mashed Bus’ which we will be organising for anyone who is interested in free transport to the event on June 21st.

Organising the next event has given us a warm fuzzy feeling that we’re doing something nice and good for the web industry and we hope that everyone who comes along will feel the same. As I’ve mentioned before, networking events and recognition for those that work in the web are few and far between however, thankfully ‘Geek Meet-Ups’ seem to be springing up all over the world from Oxford to Leeds to Boston.

Hopefully it will give the industry the bit of a boost that it needs, for example the BBC Innovation Lab that we recently attended follows a similar pattern to the last two web scene meet-ups in that the male to female ratio was about 15 – 1, and I bet Mashed will be the same. Why are women in the web in such a minority?

Is it to do with reputation? I’m not sure that terms such as ‘Geeks’ and ‘Nerds’ have helped promote the industry in the best light. Perhaps schools teaching ‘IT’ should get kids involved in the web a bit more and show them the funky stuff you can do with Flash and AJAX as well as the Word and Excel basics that are drilled into them on a daily basis. And not just the web, but games development, 3D graphics and simulation too.

Let’s all do our bit to show what a stimulating, fun and sexy industry the web is to work in – it can only be a good thing. It’ll help with recruitment and job prospects, more recognition and cooler events, bigger and better improvements in technology, and your mum and dad won’t keep asking ’so what is it exactly that you do?’.

The future is not just bright, it’s luminous!

*** Claire