HACK Augusta is holding an event targeting what is still an underrepresented community in the technology workforce.
The Women in Tech meetup wants to create a supportive and empowering community for women in technology. It will be held April 16 in theClubhou.se in the Georgia Cyber Innovation and Training Center. The hosts are Sarah Matta, with HACK Augusta, and Lexie Irvine, Ecosystem Builder with theClubhou.se.
“We have it once a month, and it mostly came about from me speaking at the inaugural 2025 Tech Talk Augusta event and standing out because I was a woman,” Matta told ABD. “I’m a woman in tech, and I had multiple, not just women, but people in general, come up to me asking about that, noticing that’s really still underrepresented a lot.”
The website WomenTech Network (www.womentech.net/) cited a study by The World Bank that supports Matta’s observation, both nationally and internationally. The study found that less than one-third of the world’s technology-related positions are filled by women. In the U.S., women held 35% of tech jobs at the end of 2023.
The opportunities the Woman in Tech meetup provides are twofold. First, to share knowledge and experiences the women may never have been able to discuss in the past.
“I like trying to create an environment where everyone can grow, and that’s a big deal,” explained Matta. “Some of it just boils down to things that you haven’t been able to say to other people, either it’s jokes or it’s an experience that you haven’t been able to share, because no one around you would have related to it, and suddenly you have 10 people in the room that would find it’s very interesting.”
Matta added that it also gives women the chance to build a community.
“Women in Tech is important, and there’s a space for everyone. But I don’t think I realized until recently how small the space for women in tech really is, and it continues to astound me,” she said. “I think that there’s a lot that we can learn from each other, because so many of us have quality worth sharing experiences that we don’t either get or we haven’t heard of, and so it takes us so much longer to grow.”
This marks the second Women in Tech meetup event organized by HACK Augusta. Matta said the first one was a cross-section of ages, both students and career women.
“I assumed that I would do more talking about experiences in maybe even a mentor way, because I assumed that there were probably more students coming, and we did have a fair bit of that, but it is more of a mix than I thought,” she said. “I thought that it would be helpful to just be mentally and physically available for any kind of mentoring. This is what I’ve experienced. This is what I can tell you. This is what I’ve had other people tell me.”
The April 16 meetup will be from 5 – 8 p.m. Matta said attendees are welcome to bring their own technology, but it is not required. Drinks and light snacks will be provided.
Registration is required at www.meetup.com/hackaugusta/events/306701877/?eventOrigin=group_events_list
