When Kate Dubuisson saw the photos of Isis Wenger, a platform engineer who appeared in an ad for her tech company’s recruiting campaign, she couldn’t believe people were more focused on the woman’s looks instead of her skills.

“She had all of these people saying hateful things, like ‘Oh, you’re just out here for the sex appeal,’ and, ‘Look, hot women work here,’” says Dubuisson, a backend software developer for MapMyFitness. “That’s very degrading to the industry. We’re here doing the same things men are.”

The ad went viral, and women in the tech business started sharing selfies using the hashtag #ILookLikeAnEngineer. Dubuisson, who went to Rochester Institute of Technology and was on both the cross-country and track teams, believes the discussion around women in tech shouldn’t even be a discussion. “I think it should move more toward being a thing where that’s not even notable, nobody blinks, nobody calls it out,” she says.

Dubuisson is one of two female developers in her office in Denver and was usually the only female in her computer science classes in college. Being part of the cross-country and track teams at the Division III school helped her find those lasting friendships.

“They understood that you were there to get an education first. But we were still all really passionate about running,” she says.

Dubuisson didn’t become a runner until she was 16. In fact, her love of running was somewhat started by her love of computers. In high school, she realized she was out of shape because she was going home after school, sitting on the couch and coding (she taught herself HTML and CSS before she was a teenager). So she started out power walking and, with the encouragement of one of her friends, she joined the indoor track team.

Now, Dubuisson’s two passions—running and computer science—have combined in her job at MapMyFitness, an app that allows you to map your runs or rides, input your nutrition, and log your workouts, among many other features.

“We want everyone to have the tools that they need and they’d actually enjoy using every day to track their workouts, improve, and get encouragement,” she says.

Connected fitness—the umbrella term that includes apps, wearables and smart apparel—is now a $14 billion a year industry and doesn’t seem to be slowing down. With an insider’s view, Dubuisson believes part of the industry’s success is its focus on community.

“We get a lot of feedback, like, ‘None of my Facebook friends want to see this stuff. They’re tired of seeing all my photos and workouts. I want to be part of a community of people who appreciate that and understand what it means to me,’” she explains. “That’s definitely a huge part of it.”

Although she’s typically a solo runner, Dubuisson has found her own little running community in Golden, Colorado, having been to every single Thursday night run club out of a fairly new local running store.

There seems to be a common thread between Dubuisson’s worlds (connected fitness, women in tech and running): the desire to bring people together. “I think a lot of it is a sense of belonging,” she says.

And it seems like Dubuisson’s found the perfect space.

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