Gender Changers Academy

Women visiting the ASCII hacklab created in the early ‘00s the initiative of GenderChangers Academy, driven by their frustrations about the space.

GenderChangers started as a women-only gathering, to exchange technical skills, unimpeded by typical competitiveness of male geeks. They initiated a series of workshops to make more women interested in technology and free software. It took long discussions, fights and an incident of someone throwing away the women's hardware until women-only meetings were finally accepted from the men of the hacklab. Eventually, they were even proud that this was happening in their space, but it took time and effort.