ep41 - Kishawna Peck: Backstory on how the Toronto Womxn in Data Science Conference was created

Stories from the Open Gov

Kishawna Peck is the founder and Executive Director of the Womxn in Data Science Conference, an event that provides a platform to women from diverse backgrounds to showcase their career journeys and knowledge. The conference itself is a two-day event where you get a chance to hear from women in academia, industry, government, and start-ups about how they apply data science to their work and the second day is a workshop. And today, Kishawna tells us the remarkable history of this staple Toronto conference. www.womxndsto.com Time stamps: 1:05 - Why did Kishawna create this conference? 2:45 - The relationship between Kishawna and the Stanford Women in Data Science Conference and how she went about organizing the Toronto rendition. 8:22 - How Kishawna reacted when she realized she, her family, volunteers were the only black faces at her first conference. 10:18 - How Kishawna was able to create a diverse pipeline of future speakers/facilitators in data science. 12:27 - Kishawna's original career had nothing to do with Data Science, so I ask her what brought her into the fold. 13:46 - Data ethics. 15:40 - Why she stepped away from the Stanford and how she created her own brand. 22:11 - How she went about planning the last conference, which included a trip to the hospital due to a mini-stroke. 29:09 - Kishawna's vision for the future of the conference. Kishawna Peck Twitter account https://twitter.com/DaytaDahta Toronto Womxn in Data Science Conference https://twitter.com/WomxnDSTO Richard Pietro Twitter account twitter.com/richardpietro Re: Open Gov Twitter account twitter.com/re_open_gov ABOUT Stories from the Open Gov is a podcast published by www.reopengov.org and is dedicated to telling the stories about what Open Government & Open Data look like. Your host is Richard Pietro, an Open Government & Open Data practitioner for the past 10 years. Listen and learn how Open Government & Open Data are becoming a reality! MUSIC ATTRIBUTION - Introduction & conclusion Singing Sadie - I Can't Dance freemusicarchive.org/music/Singing_…3_I_Cant_Dance Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/