#ItWasNeverADress: STEAM, Social Justice, and Radical Gestures

Monday, October 5, 2015 - 7pm-9pm Gyro, 115 Broadway, 14th floor, New York, NY 10006 Join Axosoft and Gyro as they host a night of lively discussion about gender inequities in the technology industry and beyond! Hear award-winning author, performer and creator of #ItWasNeverADress, Tania Katan with artist and music industry thinker Kiran Gandhi, whose radical act of free-bleeding at the London Marathon gained international attention, speak on how you can create social change through art, math, voice and language.  Both women are currently blazing new trails in the tech industry. In their discussion, Katan and Gandhi will draw parallels between math and drumming, as well as agile software development and creative practices used by artists. Katan has performed her stories on the Comedy Central Stage and Gandhi has toured with musician M.I.A. Find out how their creative skills assist them in creating socially relevant gestures and campaigns that identify injustices and start crucial conversations. Warning: You may leave feeling empowered. About the Presenters: Tania Katan Tania Katan is an award-winning author and creative instigator who believes in storytelling at all costs. Katan has performed her stories at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, NPR Snap Judgment, TEDX, Comedy Central Stage, and more. Her work has been written about in the New York Times, Huffington Post, TIME, BuzzFeed, GLAMOUR, and others. Formerly a Curator of Literary and Performing Arts at a contemporary art museum, Katan made the audacious leap into technology and is currently the Curator of Code at Axosoft, because every rock star company needs a punk!   Kiran Gandhi Kiran Gandhi is a music industry thinker and artist. She served as Interscope Records first-ever digital analyst between 2011-2013 and currently advises Spotify on how to provide more innovative support for creators today. Most recently she won GrammyU's annual Business Plan Competition by proposing a viable pay structure for a streaming serve that would appease labels and artists alike. As a musician, she toured internationally drumming for artist M.I.A in 2013 and DJ duo Thievery Corporation in 2010, and now produces music under her own project Madame Gandhi. Kiran holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Georgetown and an MBA from Harvard. Her life mission is to bring together ideas from music, tech and business to make the world a better place for women.   But Wait! There's More!!!  Self chec and gyro were proud to have Tania and Axosoft be a sponsor of Coders vs Cancer and its inaugural hackathon for women in tech against breast cancer. After Tania and Kiran’s talk, there will be a short show on what was accomplished at the hackathon. Additionally, hackathon teams that are moving forward with their breast cancer programs will be on hand to demo their progress.