Takeaways from AWS Summit Paris 2023
Usually, I’m always excited to attend to this unmissable event. This year a few weeks ago, my account manager AWS asked me if I would like be a speaker for an event they organise at AWS. The subject was Women in Tech and who’s the best to talk about this : Me :) Seriously, it is an important subject and I wanted to bring a little stone to the building.
Of course I’ve accepted, and the event was originally scheduled for the International Women’s Day 2023 in the AWS building at La Defense. However due to the strike going on in France, not so important compared to our subject Diversity in tech, the event was postponed and finally canceled because the subject was so important that AWS decided to have a roundtable during the Summit in April. WoW!!!! From a little event where I wanted to take part I was launched to this big event in France hosted every year by AWS since 2013.
For those who don’t know what it is :
- a day dedicated to learn, understand and share clients experience
- meet partners
- meet clients using AWS services or just trying to understand for beginners how you can construct and develop services
- meet AWS experts
This year there were 10 000 participants at this event.
You must consider AWS as lego, AWS provide us plenty of tiny bricks (services), and you have to build what you want, assemble the legos together. So simple right ? This is not from me it is from Werner Vogels the CTO of Amazon (big big fan by the way, i’ve seen him in Vegas nearly every year since 2017 but never had the chance to get close to him:) ) Let’s come back to our main subject : Women in tech. Last reference about Werner, in 2017 at Vegas, Werner put the spot on one his female developper, she made an amazing demo on Cloud9.
So I was literally thrilled because I’ve always wanted to take part as a speaker and also I want my team to be present at this event to show what they achieved. I want them to be proud.
In this round table, I shared the talk about the importance of gender diversity and inclusion with amazing women one of which Mai-Lan Tomsen Bukovec (AWS VP). Stop talking about the event and let’s talk about what are my takeaways from this roundtable :
- Everyone can hold the change, don’t wait for it to come from above
- Managers must hold the change in their teams : so be careful that everyone can talk, no one is interrupted, ideas are not stolen from women (we all know a meeting where a woman talk about something, no one listen but when the exact same idea come from a men, sometimes louder : “whoah! You’re totally right” :)))))) Mai-Lan brought it on the table and she is totally right. We all know this kind of situation. Leaders should show the way. And genders awareness-raising is so important.
- Don’t ask for a position ONLY if you check all the boxes ! (from Alexandra Syrovatski), if you feel ready GO for it !
- ASK for a raise if you think you deserve it (just don’t wait)
- Ask very clearly to have 50% female candidates to your partners
- Show the young generation that Tech/Engineering/computer science is interesting, fun and cool, so be present at middle school and High school to spread the idea
- Give to women the opportunities to develop their skills : training/development/networking/mentoring because we still have a few women in leadership positions
- Use shadowing technique : to gain experience and raise someone to a strategic level
A last focus on what we have at LeParisien
Le Parisien is committed to diversity, inclusion, and equality. These are key values we prioritize in our newsroom because as a media organization, we cannot accurately cover society if we do not reflect the diversity of the communities we serve. To achieve this, we have implemented several initiatives, including:
- Job offers: We carefully craft our job descriptions and mission statements to attract a diverse pool of applicants.
- Retention: We are dedicated to equal pay from recruitment through retention, ensuring that our employees are valued and compensated fairly.
- Events: We host events such as “Leadership au féminin” to promote diverse representation in leadership positions.
- Training and networking: We provide training and networking opportunities to help all employees reach their full potential.
- Measuring and communicating progress: We are tracking our progress toward our goal of having 50% women in management positions within 5 years and regularly communicating updates to our team.
- Awareness-raising: We offer talks and modules to raise awareness among our managers and teams.
You can find more information about our initiatives and measurable objectives on our website: https://www.leparisien.fr/charte-egalite/.
Let’s change the world together !
