This Saturday is the third edition of the all-day Women Techmakers event, a one day conference at the École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS).

Women Techmakers is a global program created by Google to celebrate International Women’s Day and to highlight the talent of women in technology. The program has been involved in over 200 events in 52 countries across the globe, the focus being to promote talented and passionate women while increasing their visibility within the tech community they live in.

“Here in Montreal, I learned about the Women Techmakers project three years ago while doing a Google developer group,” Laurence de Villers, co-organizer of the event told MTLinTECH. “Google developer groups are groups that Google provides information to and then helps organize meetups and technical events. I thought it would be a great idea to have a Women Techmakers event in Montreal, an event that showcases amazing women onstage. I decided to start the first edition three years ago, it was the first event organized in Canada.”

After last year’s event’s larger size and number of foreign speakers caused ticket prices to soar, this year the event was organized with a focus on accessibility.

“Last year we tried too hard to do a big event with a lot of speakers from outside the city, and the costs went a little bit overboard. So this year we tried to focus on making the price accessible for everyone and we decided to have more Montreal speakers—although we still have quite a few speakers from the US—and it will be just the one day. So the price is really accessible for everyone. Our goal is to make it available to everyone that wants to go. The event is separated in two tracks: a track for soft skills and a track that is more technical. The soft skill track is open to entrepreneurship, and the more technical will include VR and AI.”

The tickets, which are $10 for students and $40 for general admission, include access to all sessions, meals and coffee, dinner and party, daycare for children, and coat check.

“This year we chose the final 20 speakers from 130 proposals. Topics will range to AR/VR to AI to entrepreneurship skills.”

De Villers was also quick to point out that the event, while focused on highlighting women onstage, is open to every gender.

“The main purpose is really to put women in front and onstage, but there is a lot of groups that try to bring women into tech by teaching them, but our main focus is to present women models. It’s a way to show young girls and women who might think tech is not for them that tech is actually for everyone. All the speakers are women, but the event is open to every gender.”

The event runs from 8 am to 6 pm this coming Saturday, March 17th. Women Techmakers 2018 is already sold out.