Sizovs is also believed to be running (or at least influencing) the popular Coding Unicorn tech influencer across social media. | Image: The Verge
Something seems to be amiss with the diverse speaker list of the Devternity and JDKon developer conferences. The women, some of whom allegedly work for the parent company of both conferences, Dev.events, do not appear to exist. Devternity founder Eduards Sizovs has come under fire for creating fake women guest speakers for the events — and possibly creating a popular “tech influencer” that’s amassed over 115,000 real-world followers on Instagram.
As first noted by 404 Media, on November 24th, engineer Gergely Orosz claimed that several women listed to appear as Devternity speakers — including Coinbase staff engineer Anna Boyko and Coinbase “software craftswoman” Natalie Stadler — didn’t actually exist and were made up by the event…