On Thursday, November 30, 2017, I attended a Women in Tech Symposium on Innovation & Entrepreneurship. This public half-day symposium spotlighted the experience of women in the tech industry–from established companies to startups and the venture capital firms that support them.
How do you pledge to move diversity in tech forward?
Here are some of my main takeaways from the conference:
- From the Keynote: Be the Token and Be Proud of It, Poornima Vijayashanker, Founder, Femgineer; Founding engineer, Mint.com: "Be the token and be proud of it."
- From Catherine Berman, Co-Founder and CEO, CNote: "Like any power, we can use that power for good or not so good. Invest in the status quo, inclusion."
- From Sue Carter, Professor, Physics Department, UC Santa Cruz: "Having key people on your side that see something in you can help greatly in your trajectory."
- From Laura Teclemariam, Lead Senior Product Manager, Electronic Arts: "Go to the meetups, conferences. Connect with people on LinkedIn. It doesn’t matter if it’s not in your industry."
- From Sophia Velastegui, Executive in Technology: “The reason I’ve been so successful in changing industries, is because I’ve had this personal Board of Directors to show me how my engineering lens interacts with other facets of business. They also encourage me to pursue leadership roles beyond of engineering despite imposter syndrome.”
- From Jessica Ladd, Founder and CEO, Callisto: "How do we meet survivors where they are at and increase the probability that action will be taken if they do come forward?"
- From Rebecca Stuart, Attorney, Employment Law Practice, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich Rosati: “The sexual harassment issues are not worse now than it was 6 years ago or 16 years ago. It’s just being talked about now.”
“If you want to move the ball forward, you have to play the game.” -Jo Yuen, Executive Director of @WITIatUC