Isis Anchalee is a Canadian full-stack engineer.

Isis Anchalee
Isis Anchalee during TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2015
Born1993 (age 30–31)
NationalityCanadian
OccupationSoftware Engineer
Known forILookLikeAnEngineer

Biography

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Anchalee was born in 1993,[1] and began teaching herself how to code in 2013.[2] She was employed by OneLogin, Uber, and later Hustle,[3] where she worked as a software engineer on its product team.[4] She is also the founder of the #ilooklikeanengineer hashtag created in order to promote discussion of gender equality in tech after the OneLogin featured her face in an ad campaign.[5] She has also given multiple talks, such as at Tech Inclusion New York in 2017[6] and at GHC15 in 2015.[7] Anchalee is also on the Advisory Board of Women Who Code. Following being let go from Hustle, she started traveling the world and currently writes the blog Making Love With Life.[2]

Creation of I Look Like An Engineer

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Hashtag

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Anchalee created #ilooklikeanengineer (an example of hashtag activism) when she received derogatory comments about her face being featured in an ad campaign for OneLogin. Anchalee feels that most people are "...well intentioned but genuinely blind to a lot of [things] that those who do not identify as male have to deal with."[8] The hashtag took off. In the first two months of it was used in 19,354 original tweets and 29,529 retweets[9] One year after the launch of #ilooklikeanengineer 250,000 plus people had used the hashtag.[10][11] Both her hashtag and the accompanying Medium post about her experiences received a lot of media coverage and her work was highlighted by celebrities such as Chelsea Clinton and Emma Watson.[12] Her hashtag has been adapted for use in other professions not usually thought of as diverse (such as #ilooklikeasurgeon) and along with other organizations, such as Girls Who Code and Women Who Code, has led to more societal awareness of the diversity in the field of computing.[9]

Facebook

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Her Facebook account was suspended due to similarities between her given name and the terrorist group ISIS,[13][14][15] but her account was later reactivated.[16]

References

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  1. ^ O’Brien, Sara Ashley. “Hip-Hop Dancer, College Dropout: #ILookLikeAnEngineer.” CNNMoney, Cable News Network, 4 Aug. 2015, money.cnn.com/2015/08/04/technology/isis-wegner-i-look-like-an-engineer/index.html.
  2. ^ a b isisAnchalee (22 January 2019). "❂ New Chapters: Why I'm Leaving Silicon Valley". Making Love With Life. Retrieved 26 March 2019.
  3. ^ "Isis Anchalee". Twitter. Retrieved 1 May 2018.
  4. ^ Anchalee, Isis (9 May 2018). "Twitter Post". @isisAnchalee. Retrieved 26 March 2019.
  5. ^ Times, Los Angeles (4 August 2015). "Think you know what an engineer looks like? #ilooklikeanengineer says think again". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
  6. ^ "Tech Inclusion New York - Bizzabo". ny17.techinclusion.co. Retrieved 26 March 2019.
  7. ^ AnitaB_org (29 November 2015), Isis Anchalee GHC15, retrieved 26 March 2019
  8. ^ Anchalee, Isis (1 August 2015). "You May Have Seen My Face on BART – The Coffeelicious". Medium. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
  9. ^ a b Johri, Aditya, et al. “How Diverse Users and Activities Trigger Connective Action via Social Media: Lessons from the Twitter Hashtag Campaign #ILookLikeAnEngineer.” 2018.
  10. ^ Anchalee, Isis (3 August 2016). "#iLookLikeAnEngineer: One Year Later – Startup Grind". Medium. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
  11. ^ MacDonald, Fiona. "The best tweets from the #ILookLikeAnEngineer hashtag". ScienceAlert. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
  12. ^ Anchalee, Isis. “#ILookLikeAnEngineer: One Year Later.” Medium, Startup Grind, 16 Aug. 2016, medium.com/startup-grind/ilooklikeanengineer-one-year-later-b599e0cae817.
  13. ^ Kircher, Madison Malone (17 November 2015). "A woman named Isis claims she's been blocked from signing into Facebook". Business Insider. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  14. ^ Titcomb, James (18 November 2015). "Woman named Isis has Facebook account suspended". The Telegraph. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  15. ^ Hunt, Elle (18 November 2015). "'Facebook thinks I'm a terrorist': woman named Isis has account disabled". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  16. ^ Kircher, Madison Malone (17 November 2017). "Facebook finally unblocked a woman named Isis from its site — but there is still a bigger issue". Business Insider. Retrieved 14 February 2017.