“Improving female participation in work across the OECD could boost OECD GDP by US $6 trillion, while closing the gender pay gap could boost GDP by US$2 trillion.”
Future of Women in Tech is a growing global collaborative forum with a mission to elevate women’s leadership and voice in the technology disciplines.
Currently, Women hold only 15% of board seats and leadership roles, and only 12% of engineers at Silicon Valley startups are women. Only 11% of executive positions at Silicon Valley companies are held by women. In Australia, 16.8% of CEOs/Heads of Business are women (dreamhost - state of women in tech).
We believe we can and must increase equity by sharing solutions that are changing the trajectory. Through our unique interactive and action-oriented, crowdsourcing forums, we have been gathering a wealth of practical solutions for businesses to implement today, while showcasing the female perspective in technology development.
The program was developed as an initiative by International Connector in partnership with Australian American Chamber of Commerce, San Francisco. Through a year of interviews with women teach leaders across Australia and United States, it was clear that diversity and inclusion solutions needed to be addressed.
UN Sustainable Development Goal
The Future of Women in Tech focuses on UN Sustainable Development Goal 10 - Reduced Inequalities. Goal 10 calls for reducing inequalities in income, as well as those based on age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status within a country.
Human-centric participatory design model:
The Future of Women In Tech utilizes our human-centric design methodology. Through technically-rich and immersive experiences, our forum allows participants to answer questions and contribute new ideas on predetermined topics in real time. We crowdsource, co-create and exchange ideas in an immersive and interactive format.
There are four elements to the model:
Ecosystem of Collaborative Partnerships: We have reached out to many women and men across different cities, regions and industries. Solid solutions are multifaceted and need many organizations collaborating to move the needle forward.
Community Participation: Our events, both virtual and in person, are interactive. Everyone who attends is part of the process, for the best ideas come from collective conversations.
Living Learning Lab: As we learn new ideas, we share the results with others to pilot, test, tweak for business today. We are constantly learning through this ever-developing process.
Stakeholder Engagement: We circle back to everyone who has been involved with new ideas, new perspectives, new expertise and new questions. In fact, we see this program as a growing global forum as we expand the conversation in many more regions.
Our Partners
We have been honored with a participation from inspiring leaders and dedicated corporations and government agencies all looking to change the trajectory:
Female Leadership
Our ever-growing list of speakers have included:
Adriane Brown, FLYING FISH VENTURES / Board, EBAY, AXON, PACIFIC SCIENCE TRUST
Amanda Richardson, CODERPAD
Angela Johnson, UBER / COALITION OF BLACK EXCELLENCE
Anna Buber-Farovich, GOOGLE*
Catherine Raffaele, BRILLUP
Celeste Johnston, MELBOURNE CONVENTION EXHIBITION CENTRE
Cheryl Contee, DO BIG THINGS / AUTHOR
Cheryl Mack, AUSTRALIAN COMPUTER SOCIETY
Christine Hawkins, HP INC.
Claire Johnston, LENDLEASE
Claudine Ogilvie, JETSTAR*
Danielle Coleman, VM WARE
Danielle Williams, WINSTON & STRAWN
Dawn McIntosh, NASA AMES RESEARCH CENTER
Helen Fairclough, MELBOURNE CONVENTION EXHIBITION CENTRE
Holly Bretherton, AUSTRALIAN COMPUTER SOCIETY
Jackie Yuen, AUSTRALIAN AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, SAN FRANCISCO
Jaimie Hogan, VIASAT
Janine Griffiths, ACCENTURE
Jean Hayden, GOOGLE
Jennifer Nunez, UNBABEL
Jeri Childers, UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY SYDNEY
Kalpana Chandrasekhar, BITEABLE
Karen Gee, AUSTRALIAN COMPUTER SOCIETY
Kathi Vidal, WINSTON & STRAWN
Laura Franco, WINSTON & STRAWN
Liz McMillan, GO1
Maria Markman, AUSTRALIAN COMPUTER SOCIETY
Odette Hampton, AUSTRALIAN TRADE AND INVESTMENT COMMISSION
Pauline Fetaui, RIVER CITY LABS
Ruchi Shah, MD, UCSF / MOSQUITOS BE GONE LLC
Sarah Kruger, ACCENTURE
Sarah-jane Peterschlingmann, ATECH
Saranya Raghavan, WINSTON & STRAWN
Sheryl Falk, WINSTON & STRAWN
Susan Doniz, QANTAS*
Susannah Torpey, WINSTON & STRAWN
Tory See, VIASAT
Victoria Denholm, AUSTRALIAN NSW TREASURY
Zak Hammer, QANTAS
* company at time of their participation
