Christine Bongard, Global IAMCP Women in Technology Lead
Happy Birthday Women in Technology! This year IAMCP WIT turns 6 years old at the Microsoft Inspire Conference 9th-13th July, in Washington DC, and boy, do we have a lot to celebrate!
We will be adding our 50th community this month. That’s right … we have grown from three to fifty in under six years, now boasting communities right across the globe covering almost every continent!
All of this success did not come about without considerable amounts of work from the IAMCP and WIT leaders around the globe and for that, we are eternally grateful. Huge congratulations and thanks to every person who has helped drive the growth and impact of IAMCP WIT – we couldn’t have done it without you.
The value of IAMCP WIT is a compelling one. Our community offers a unique global P2P experience. Our members can network with like-minded women from all over the world and even though many of us are miles apart, we find ourselves with very similar issues. We need to support and encourage one another and our colleagues to BE BOLD and move forward with confidence into greater leadership positions. We need to INSPIRE and motivate more women to become entrepreneurs. And most importantly, we need to start moving the dial for young women in our world to pursue careers in IT.
This year at Inspire, we have a BOLD and exciting lineup planned for our community.
We kick things off on Sunday with a new event! Gail Mercer Mackay will be leading us through a Mentoring Circles activity. This hands-on workshop will educate us on the importance of mentoring and leave us with a guide on how to start up mentoring circles in our home communities.
On Monday, we end Day One of the conference with a fun and interactive Happy Hour sponsored by Robert Half. We will have our specialty cocktail “Inspire Me” and an entertaining presentation by Nancy Watts including PowerPoint Karaoke! Also, Women in Partner will be awarding four dedicated and hard working women in our community for their achievements during this gathering.
On Tuesday, our Leadership Session will feature an incredible Men’s Panel talking about the importance of Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace and how this has benefited their organizations (and how you can do it, too!). We are really pushing the boundaries here and showing a new perspective on why what we do and the community we belong to is so important.
On Wednesday we close the week on a high with our annual Charity Luncheon, where it all began. Thanks to our sponsors, Jabra, Hanu, TeamViewer, Cisco and SkyKick, we will make a large donation to the charity, Harvest for Humanity, dedicated to empowering children to reach their potential. WIT has a powerful panel set up to discuss their best BE BOLD moment and to INSPIRE us all to leave the conference motivated to go home and realize our full potential!
We would also like to thank our two Platinum sponsors for WIT at Inspire: Teknikos and Microsoft Women in Partner. Their support has allowed us to produce an amazing experience in our lounge in the Community Hub. Teknikos will be donating some AV screens and tablets so that we may get people signed up for IAMCP on the spot! They are also producing some fun "spinners" as swag. Women in Partner will be giving lovely Gratitude Journals to all who sign up for IAMCP and the Women in Partner Linked In Group. Volunteers will be there ready to assist you with any questions you may have and to give out these fun gifts!
If you want to learn more about our fantastic community there are many ways to connect with us. You can email me at WIT@IAMCP.org. You can follow us on twitter: @IAMCPWIT and for the conference #WITatMsInpire. Join our LinkedIn group https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7002046, And you can join our community at www.IAMCP.org/WIT.
Please stop by our booth to say Hi at Inspire!
Do Great Things!
Christine Bongard
IAMCP WIT Global Chairperson