Women Techmakers 2016 Year-In-Review
This year Women Techmakers, Google’s global program for women in tech, turned 5 years old at Google I/O. We started out as a once-per-year gathering at I/O and in 2013 I developed our current vision and team to support and empower as many women in tech around the world throughout the year. During my speech at this year’s annual Women Techmakers dinner at I/O, I looked out over a crowd of 800 women from around the world and was reminded that just a few years ago there were only a few hundred of us. I was seeing women from Bulgaria, Argentina, India, New Zealand, Korea, South Africa, Spain, Vietnam, and more, break bread and talk about their roles, hardships, and successes. I have to admit, I teared up. This was the sisterhood in tech I’d dreamt of. We weren’t relying on one person, organization or company to solve for the underrepresentation of women in our industry — we were the problem solvers and we were showing up.
In 2016, the Women Techmakers team worked with passionate collaborators inside and outside of the company to increase visibility, community, and resources for women in technology globally. We focused on removing barriers to entry so more women could develop their skill-sets and launched Membership to ensure women at every step of their career had access to curated resources and a network. We created scalable public speaking resources and worked with community partners and diversity & inclusion leaders to foster technology ecosystems around the world.
Sitting with a warm cup of tea and reflecting on 2016 I can’t help but feel excited for what 2017 will bring, not just for Women Techmakers, but for the countless diversity & inclusion leaders and allies, community organizations, apps and companies, roundtables and conferences, and thoughtful posts that each day move us towards a more equitable society and industry. And collectively we’re not just reshaping what the landscape looks like for underrepresented people in the United States or in Silicon Valley — we’re a global movement. So the next time people say, “Why aren’t there women in tech?” Point to the incredible community partners below, and the international role models on our Directory. We’re here and we’re lifting each other up.
If you’d like to collaborate with us or have suggestions/ideas for 2017, feel free to comment here or email us at women-techmakers@google.com.
Note: Links provided below the infographic.
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2016 Community Partners:
