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A Year of Lambda Ladies Dinners

It's always fun to attend a conference and run into a number of Lambda Ladies. That has happened to me several times over the past year.

  • Clojure/West - In March 2014, Clojure/West was held in San Francisco. A few Lambda Ladies came by and new friends were recruited. Kelsey organized an impromptu dinner where even more local Bay Area Lambda Ladies joined. Cognitect was kind enough to sponsor dinner for us. We had a full house at dinner, and then many of us stopped by the conference party afterward.

  • OSCON - There were a number of Lambda Ladies speaking at OSCON 2014 in Portland, OR, so we decided to hold a dinner. Thanks to PuppetLabs for sponsoring this time. Several of us swung by the conference party at the PuppetLabs offices after dinner.

OSCON Lambda Ladies dinner

  • Strange Loop - There were so many Lambda Ladies speaking, more attending, and many new friends introduced to Lambda Ladies at Strange Loop in St Louis in September 2014. So many, in fact, that we threw a party instead of a dinner. We went bowling! Fastly was our sponsor for this great event.

Strange Loop Lambda Ladies party

  • Clojure/Conj - In November 2014, Lambda Ladies and new friends had dinner at the Clojure/Conj, sponsored by my employer, LivingSocial. Brick Alloy sponsored, also, as it regularly does. Afterward, we all walked over to the Crime Museum for the conference party.

Conversation at Lambda Ladies dinners is always interesting. Between all of these dinners, I learnt about: life at Hacker School, who is using functional programming for what at work, the history of Prolog, and eigenharps. Lambda Ladies have a wide variety of interests, to say the least. I was able to learn more about speakers' topics, and, in some cases, help calm nerves for those still writing their slide presentation software ahead of their talks.

I hope to see more Lambda Ladies at events in 2015!