Welcome to the first edition of the YSYS Monthly Roundup. A lot happens behind the scenes, so this is a great opportunity to reflect on our impact and all the big wins from the community.
Last month we were busy hiring…
We welcomed new team members to YSYS. Denise and Liz who will be heading up our marketing department and sharing stories of our amazing community and Tyra, who has joined as Employment Programme Manager, who will be leading on TalentDoor our career programme or diverse talent. 🥳
“It has always been a huge interest of mine to work diversifying tech teams. I have always had an affinity to technology because; I love how it solves so many real-life problems and is constantly evolving in the interest of optimisation. Unfortunately, various biases still exist in the tech space, and technology can also be discriminatory. This is why I feel it’s so important to make sure that those creating the tech, are as diverse as possible.” — Tyra Alexander, YSYS, Employment Programme Manager.
We can’t wait for Tyra to get stuck in and be a leader at the forefront of change and impact in diversity in Tech.
Here are a few amazing events we want to shout about:
We held 3 digital events with 2 partners and over 500 of our community attended which was amazing.
We kicked off July with Part 2 of ‘The Rise of Black Communities in Tech’ conversation. Hundreds of you joined to learn how we can continue to the Black Lives Matter momentum. We’ve seen organisations and individuals take action from, digital protests to diversity and inclusion training — but what next?
We brought together black community leaders to share how we move beyond the hashtags, going from awareness → action.
A big thank you to Andy Davis, Abadesi Osunsade, Anu Adebajo, Tom Adeyoola, Mohammed Kazzam, Rich Serunjogi, and Deborah Okenla #BlackTechCommunities
The hashtags have since died down but we need to keep pushing for change. Here are a few ‘small’ but meaningful things we can all do:
We had so much fun partnering with Goldman Sachs, UKBlackTech, and The Mayor of London backed initiative, WIN, to ‘Discover Engineering’ 🚀
Over the two hours, our community members asked questions to the hiring team, received invaluable advice & heard insightful talks from the panel.
This session was jam packed with all the key things you need to know to bag a job in Engineering! Here’s the first top tip:
⚡️ Set up a free personal profile on HackerRank and get into the routine of completing challenges long before applying for a role at Goldman Sachs.
Don’t worry if you missed it, we dropped gems from the session below:
July ended with a much-needed community event with our friends at Travers Smith, a leading full-service UK law firm, to equip our community with the negotiation skills you need to navigate challenging conversations about:
- Salary increases
- Good negotiations
- Job promotions
We don’t know who needs to hear this but “don’t wait for an annual appraisal or review to ask for a pay rise” 👏🏾
More gems over on our Twitter:
Big win 🙌🏾!!
We’ve now passed 200 community advocates, gaining 50 in July. We’re currently at 221 and we’re still calling all allies to become a YSYS community advocate 🗣
Help us take action and create opportunities for overlooked groups. Interested? Sign up here: bit.ly/310HNYJ
There’s a new FoundersDoor cohort 🚀
We’re soooo excited to welcome these 8 founders and 4 startups to the next #FoundersDoor programme.
A huge welcome to Legal Loft, Selectaire, Uneco, and Bridge who will be undergoing a six-week pre-accelerator to set up a path to startup success.
We’ll keep you updated!
We hope you’ve enjoyed this month’s short round-up and we will catch you at the start of next month 🚀
