Gender Tech Personal Experiences

Title of the tutorial	Personal experiences in technology
Attributions
Kind of learning session	Gender and Tech
Tutorial category	Icebreaking
Duration (hours)	1
Learning objectives	Learning from the experiences of others in the room with you, and having an opportunity to share your stories in a safe space with other people. For people present who perhaps haven't had so many experiences in this realm, it presents a good opportunity to listen from those who have had other experiences.
Prerequisites	A majority of the group need to be either women/from marginalised communities within technology, for this activity to work best. Encourage others to spend time listening – passive participation is just as important as active. The exercise is ideally carried out when participants have already got to know each other a little, rather than as a first exercise.
Methodology	Ask people to get into small (3-4 person) groups, and think about experience they've had where they have felt marginalised in their communities. This might be anything from microaggressions at work, not feeling able to speak up, or blatant forms of discrimination. To the extent that they all feel comfortable, go around the group and ask people to share these experiences. If they don't feel comfortable sharing their own, talking about experiences they have heard about from others, is also a valuable contribution. The exercise is primarily one around listening and sharing in small groups- if the group is already close, then sharing back in the big group might also be appropriate, but this is not a necessary part of the exercise. Coming back to the big group, the facilitator could ask: What have you learned, from hearing from others in your group? Does anyone feel comfortable sharing their experiences with the bigger group? (Especially for those for whom these experiences might be new) - has this changed your perspective at all?
Number of facilitators involved	1
Technical needs	None
Theoretical and on line resources