Tag: International Women’s Day

In honour of Women’s History Month, Amazon Web Services (AWS) celebrates female leaders who inspire and empower women and girls in STEM. Their stories demonstrate technical excellence, leadership, collaboration, and mentorship – values that create an inclusive culture where all can thrive. The United Nations’ (UN) theme for this year’s International Women’s Day was “Invest […]

On March 16, I had the honor of kicking off the Build(Her) Conference in Washington, DC, a co-hosted Halcyon and AWS event, along with Kate Goodall, Halcyon co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO). First launched in 2020, the Build(Her) Conference brings together women leaders and entrepreneurs from both the public and private sectors to share ideas, network, and hear from speakers on topics like government innovation, fundraising and growing companies, resilience, and more.

When I travel around the world, I try to spend time with women leaders in different organizations, industries, and walks of life. In the time we have together, I try to learn about their hopes and dreams. In those conversations, I hear both a desire to think big about the future and a struggle to balance the commitments and responsibilities that fall almost exclusively to women. The numbers are clear: the percentage of the women participating in the global labor force is declining. I recently wrote about steps we can take to recover from the last year. Today, I want to share three stories that make me hopeful that we can collectively achieve gender parity. 

Early in your career it is important to find individuals that you respect and admire to act as mentors. I still have mentors, and I still ask questions. You need to remember that the onus is on you to use your mentor’s time. You need to be prescriptive when it comes to asking for their help. Come to them with specific questions and give them perspective on where you need guidance. Approaching a mentor with a clear understanding of where you need guidance is key to respecting their time and getting the most of yours.

With our attention on gender diversity this International Women’s Day, we want to share what we can all do to address the workforce gender divide. A 2017 report by the National Center for Women and Information Technology reveals that women hold only 20% of computing jobs in the U.S. and that this number is declining, not increasing. In 2015, only 18% of Computer and Information Sciences bachelor’s degree recipients were women. In addition to We Power Tech, AWS is working with several nonprofit organizations who are leading the way by empowering, training, and creating a community for women engineers, developers, designers, entrepreneurs, leaders, and more, around the world