This week, AZ Tech Beat hosted our first annual Celebration of Women in Technology luncheon to honor the incredible female leaders in the sector. We also announced the start of our mentorship program geared towards young women set to launch this fall.
This luncheon represented how women impact all different facets of the technology sector and support each other. It was important to this group to continue to grow a strong tech community and promote the advancement of young women in the sector. We would like to reach out to the strong female leaders in our industry and join us to fuel our upcoming program for young girls in order to find internships, jobs, and mentors within our community. Every girl deserves a chance to be her best self and nobody can do it alone. We want to promote authenticity, appreciation, and the right balance of positive encouragement and reality to all the young women with dreams of being entrepreneurs and technology gurus. In the fall, we will be offering workshops for young women to give them the opportunity to see all the different facets of technology and find what appeals to their skill set and craft whether it be software, engineering, finance, media, or something completely new.
Other highlights of the lunch included many new connections, a few great announcements, a live hand lettering artist and a noteworthy guest speaker. With the idea of a mentorship program on the table, the women in the room began offering up other opportunities for their talented colleagues to connect with the community. Francine Hardaway, Partner of Stealthmode Partners and founder of the Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference, announced her need for female speakers for the 2013 conference.
Along with all the excitement of new horizons for women, we also hosted guest speaker Wesly Feuquay, professor of conscious psychology and founder of AWAKE, LLC, who focused on appreciating oneself and living in the moment. He expanded on sharing appreciation and impact; he defined this as the need for appreciating everyone around you at the time when you think of them—by example, stop waiting to call your friends and appreciate them, do it now. Taking a pause from life was another key topic, talking about the need to step back and relax, work will get done when it needs to but we must take time for ourselves too. Self-care comes in this respect as well. Most importantly, Wesly talked about supporting our community. Our bond as women is exceptionally important and we must support and help each other to create an even better community for the future women in technology and business.
We would like to thank all of the phenomenal women who joined us and look forward to our next event coming in June. If you’re interested in becoming a mentor for our program, please send your information for consideration to editor@aztechbeat.com.
More about our guests:
Wesly Feuquay of AWAKE, LLC
Autumn Farrell, live hand lettering artist
Editor-in-Chief note: Special thanks to my AZTB team: Reid, Lanni, Tiffany & Emily
