Eclectic Tech Carnival to raise women interest in technology

In the male-dominated world of technology, where video games are coded with men in mind and programmers seem to belong to an all male club, women are rarities eyed with curiosity and treated with condescension.

But women all over the world are finding ways to empower themselves and their causes through technology and the Eclectic Tech Carnival, or ETC, is the latest effort. The event, which was held for the first time in Pula, Croatia in 2002, is in its 10th incarnation as the Eclectic Tech Carnival Istanbul. The organization began as an on-the-road project for Genderchanges, a women- and transgender- only technology collaborative. The Eclectic Tech Carnival is a gathering of women with a critical interest in Free Information and Open Standards technology. The workshops planned for ETC Istanbul can be divided into two categories: the hardware/software workshops, which focus on installing and managing open source and free software, basic HTML coding, website design, creation and maintenance; and the social/art workshops, which center around creative ways of activism, debates on alternative uses of technology and art for and within social movements.

Thursday, August 20, 2009
Gül Tüysüz
ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News