[snipeyhead]

I didn't actually know what the previous speaker was scheduled to speak on. I never thought to ask. I recently spoke in Paris as a pinch-hitter for someone who couldn't make it last minute, and they asked me what I could speak about. That's pretty common, in my experience. Last-minute replacements don't always have to speak on the same topic, as long as it's a valid topic for the conference itself.

In retrospect, women in tech may well have been the original topic, but I never thought to ask, since I have never presented about women in tech before, so why would I be selected as a replacement if it was?