Best of 2020 to Read, Watch, Listen – Get Inspired

By Angie Chang

Meeting people was easy until the pandemic in 2020, as events became synonymous with superspreading, and so we socially distanced while hearing from women at companies talk about work, life, industry, challenges, jobs and more on Zoom. In 2020, Girl Geek X hosted 10 events and handed the mic to 84 women speakers: we heard from women at companies like Planet, Confluent, Sentry, CodeSee, Inflection, Cadence and Gap Inc virtually – and at Bloomberg (San Francisco R&D office) and Microsoft (Sunnyvale office) in early 2020.

While sheltered in place, we’ve kept writing lists of inspiring women in STEM, sharing videos from past Girl Geek X events, resurfacing our 21 podcast episodes, and sharing articles on social media.

We found it inspiring to see that the most-shared articles in our circles have been about women finding success mid-life, the importance in raising feminist sons, decolonizing Silicon Valley, and sisterhood.

In 2021, we continue Girl Geek Dinners virtually – and are planning our 4th annual Elevate virtual conference tackling topics familiar mid-to-senior women, with the help of sponsors.

It’s cold outside! Stay in and check out Girl Geek X’s most popular articles, videos, and podcasts:

Our Top 10 Articles of 2020

1. 60 Engineering Leaders To Watch in 2020
2. 60 Female CTOs to Watch in 2020
3. 21 Insightful Quotes on Leveling Up: Becoming a Manager of Managers
4. 12 Product Design Leaders To Follow in 2019
5. Former Salesforce EVP Leyla Seka Speaks Out About Why Women in Tech Need to Ask for More
6. Spring Reading: 20 Books to Help You Become a Better, More Self-Aware Ally
7. 16 Female Infosec and Cybersecurity Executives To Watch
8. 12 Inspiring Female Architects in Software and Data
9. 4 Tips For Self-Care From 8 Women Working in Silicon Valley
10. Job Opportunities From Girl Geek X Partners

Top 10 Most Circulated Posts of 2020

1. Never made the #30Under30list? No worries. You can still be successful in your 40s and beyond [BoredPanda]
2. Woman who joined high school at 43 earns electrical engineering diploma at 64 [YEN]
3. If You Want To Protect Your Daughters, Raise Better Sons [MadamNoire]
4. I’ve Been Mispronouncing My Own Name for 20 Years [Medium]
5. Feisty. Ambitious. Lucky. Female Writers on the Words that Undermine Women [NPR]
6. Former Airbnb HR Exec Says Its Time To Decolonize Silicon Valley [POCIT]
7. 10 Large Bay Area Tech Companies Employ No Black women, Study Finds [SFGATE]
8. ‘I Did the Math’: Katie Porter Gets Trump CDC Head to Commit to Making Coronavirus Testing Free [CommonDreams]
9. How ‘Birds of Prey’ Director Cathy Yan Saved Harley Quinn From Joker and the Male Gaze [TheDailyBeast]
10. Angie Chang is Scaling a Sisterhood of Geeks [bizwomen]

Top 10 Most-Watched Videos of 2020

1. Girl Geek X OpenAI Lightning Talks in 2019 – most watched: using reinforcement learning to learn dexterity in hand manipulation and ensuring artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity
2. Girl Geek X Planet Lightning Talks
3. Girl Geek X Confluent Lightning Talks in 2019
4. Leveling Up: Becoming a Manager of Managers
5. Girl Geek X Confluent Lightning Talks
6. What’s Holding You Back Might Be You: Imposter Syndrome
7. Girl Geek X Bloomberg Engineering Lightning Talks
8. Girl Geek X Toyota Research Institute Lightning Talks – 2019
9. Girl Geek X HomeLight Lightning Talks – 2019
10. How to Quickly Ramp Up on Open Source

Top 10 Podcast Episodes of 2020

1. Branding – Girl Geek X Podcast Episode 20
2. Mentorship – Girl Geek X Podcast Episode 1
3. Listener Questions – Girl Geek X Podcast Episode 21
4. Becoming A Manager – Girl Geek X Podcast Episode 6
5. Introversion, Shyness & Being You – Girl Geek X Podcast Episode 11
6. Career Transitions – Girl Geek X Podcast Episode 2
7. Imposter Syndrome – Girl Geek X Podcast Episode 4
8. Switching Job Functions – Girl Geek X Podcast Episode 19
9. Self Advocacy – Girl Geek X Podcast Episode 13
10. Why Hiring is Broken – Girl Geek X Podcast Episode 19

Our mission-aligned Girl Geek X partners are hiring!

• Check out open jobs at our trusted partner companies!
• Does your company want to sponsor a virtual Girl Geek X event in 2021? Talk to us!

See you in 2021! – The Girl Geek X Team