How #GALSNGEAR Is Going to Get “Tequity”

“I think anyone who’s in an industry that’s touched as much as ours is by innovation has got to be upskilling and reskilling constantly,” says #GALSNGEAR founder Amy DeLouise.

“Upskilling is a huge part of making sure that your career is moving forward in the direction you want it to move in,” she says. 

DeLouise’s personal upskilling initiative involves “always reading things, I’m taking workshops, I’m attending events like NAB Show New York and NAB Show, to be sure that I’m on the leading edge of everything that’s happening.” 

Upskilling is crucial to everyone’s career, but DeLouise notes that women are often part of “the leaky pipeline, where women might start out in our industry, but somehow they’re dropping out sort of early mid-career into other industries. So other people are getting them, we’re not keeping them.” 

#GALSNGEAR aims to combat that. The organization, DeLouise says, “is a community promoting equity for women in media and entertainment. And we do that in a number of ways, with networking events with upskilling, and with speaking opportunities for women at industry events,” explains Amy DeLouise. “And we partner with manufacturers and broadcasters and leading organizations in the industry to make sure that we’re leading change by empowering women.”

Tequity

“Tequity” is a DeLouise original. 

She explains, “I was talking to a lot of engineers at a particular event, and engineers like equations. And so I said, basically, ‘#GALSNGEAR is promoting an equation for tech equity. And what that is Access plus Training plus Visibility, multiplied by a Community supporting you, that equals Tequity.’” 

#GALSNGEAR introduced its online Tequity Hub as a reskinned platform they debuted during the COVID-19 pandemic to deliver a virtual version of their annual leadership training workshop.

“Our focus right now is making sure that the hub is a one stop shop for women and people who identify as women who want to upskill and reskill and propel their career to the next level,” DeLouise says.

The hub hosts monthly Tequity Tuesday Talks, to which they invite M&E industry leaders to speak on a variety of subjects during a half-hour Q&A session. The event closes, DeLouise says, when they “break into sessions where people can either follow up with the speakers, they could see a demo of some new technology, or they could look around at the links that we’re starting to develop from our partners with a variety of upskilling workshops that they can take mostly for free in a variety of areas.”

October’s Tequity Tuesday Talk is scheduled for October 17 at noon (ET), featuring Adobe’s Alexis Van Hurkman discussing “How to Become a Beta Tester (and Why It Can Help Your Career).” Source Elements’ Rebekah Wilson will also provide a remote collaboration software, which members of the #GALSNGEAR community will help to beta test.

Beta Testing

“Beta testing is one of those areas that nobody really thinks about a lot,” DeLouise says. “And yet, if you’re using a camera, if you’re using an edit system, if you’re using an IP workflow, somebody has tested that software or hardware out, probably lots of people.” 

What does beta testing involve? “Part of the job of a beta tester is actually to use things and try to break them. And let the engineers know what broke and what made it break, and then they can try to figure out how to fix it.” 

Beta testing also has advantages for the tester. DeLouise says, “It really gives you insights into the leading edge of your industry. It gives you an advantage because when that tool comes out, you’re the first person who knows how to use it. And it also means that, you know, for people who are doing really in-depth types of beta testing, they might win awards; they get to write white papers; they get to be involved more at the industry level. And they get that visibility that we talked about in the equity equation that women are sometimes missing out on.”

#GALSNGEAR is launching its own beta testing program in concert with a few manufacturers (to be announced). The organization compares the company’s requested specs and then pairs appropriate community members for the program.

“Right now, this is a very curated program, DeLouise explains. “You could almost think of it as a kind of a one-to-one mentoring, if you will, program. So a lot of the companies come to us, and they say exactly what they need in a beta tester.”

NAB Show New York and Beyond

#GALSNGEAR will host a Connect session at NAB Show New York. Dubbed “Empowering ACCESS With AI.” Scheduled for October 26 at 4 p.m., DeLouise says the session will explore how “AI [is] empowering us as creatives and as content developers.”

It will feature “a really nifty demo from Carole Pigeard from Newsbridge and Sepi Motamed from NVIDIA. Both companies are utilizing AI and harnessing it in different ways to make people’s jobs and lives easier and more interesting. So I think that’s going to be a lot of fun, and we’re pairing it with a happy hour.” 

Then, in January #GALSNGEAR will host another AI-centric session, this time for Tequity Tuesday. “The subtitle is ‘What’s AI Got To Do With It,” says DeLouise. “We’re gonna address, with a couple of sound mixers and sound designers, whether they are or not using AI enabled tools, and how that fits in their workflow.” 

“I think there’s just a lot of tools that are out there, and we just have to learn how to harness them,” DeLouise says.