2021: QueerTech’s Year of Connection and Growth
Hello to our wonderful QueerTech community, and please allow us to extend a heartfelt congratulations for making it this far into 2021! It’s hard to imagine that January has already blown past and we now find ourselves knee-deep in February but we hope that things are looking brighter for you all this year.
With plans to expand virtually to Toronto, Waterloo, Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa, Quebec City, and Halifax, 2021 will be QueerTech’s year of connection and growth, and we’re so excited to share everything we have planned to help the queer community move on in the wake of a pandemic that will hopefully soon be under control.
How can QueerTech help you thrive in 2021?
Qareer opportunities
It’s no secret that COVID-19 has had a negative impact on a lot of Canadians. With 53% of queer households having been affected by layoffs and reduced work hours, compared to 39% of Canadian households overall, our community has unfortunately experienced a disproportionately large financial impact from the pandemic .
That’s why, in 2021, QueerTech will be working hard to overcome the employment issues that many of us are facing. workforce development program to help the LGBTQ2S+ community break into the tech industry and navigate their careers, and this year our programming is expanding in a big way. We’ll be offering a really important workforce development tool by hosting two national virtual job fairs, one on April 8th , with registration for attendees opening on March 1st, and another on October 2021. You can register for our mailing list at https://www.queertech.org/join.
Although our April 8 event will be virtual, be sure to come dressed to impress and ready for video calls because, in addition to workshops and guest speakers, we’ll also be facilitating one-on-one connections with some of tech’s top employers from across Canada. It’ll be your chance to connect with hiring managers from across the industry that are committed to fostering diversity and inclusion in their workplaces, so don’t miss out!
In addition to the Qareers events, we also launched our QueerTech Talent Network job board on our website, which is regularly updated with postings from companies we know and trust.
Giving back
In addition to creating employment opportunities for the queer community, we’re also striving to help our community in other ways. It’s our great honour to announce that our annual PrideHacks event will also be taking place again this summer, virtually!
PrideHacks is an exciting opportunity not only to unite talented queer techies to work together towards a worthwhile cause but also to do our part to help queer-centric nonprofits plan for and look towards a thriving post-pandemic future!
If you’d like to learn more about how PrideHacks helps our community, check out the amazing projects we undertook in 2020 .
Making connections
And as always, we also promise to do our best to keep you entertained and inspired with more of our Café conversations! These conversations are designed to help tell inspiring stories of queer people who have made waves in the tech industry.
Our most recent conversation was an incredible sit-down with Taylor Bond , co-founder of SalesRight, and we’ve got more opportunities to hear directly from inspiring queer folks like Taylor on the way-just one more reason to make sure you’re connecting with us for regular updates on all our events and programming. If you know someone we should sit down and connect with, be sure to nominate them today !
You can stay informed about all our programs and events by signing up to be a member of QueerTech , which will allow you to receive free email or text message updates from us on everything new and exciting. Of course, you can also stay up-to-date and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook. We can’t wait to connect with you this year, and we hope you’re just as excited as we are to keep queering the tech ecosystem in 2021!
Originally published at https://www.queertech.org.
