TEDxBayArea – Celebrating Global Women Entrepreneurs

Photo Courtesy of Tatyana Kanzaveli

“Do you have fire?” Desiree Burch asked the crowd. “Discover that fire – do not push it away. It is who you are!”

Desiree was one of many speakers at the TEDxBayArea Global Women Entrepreneurs Event held on December 1^st at the LinkedIn Headquarters in Mountain View, CA.  The event featured talks by inspirational women and men encouraging women entrepreneurs to dream big and take risks. Arezoo Miot, TechWomen Program Officer, attended the event to connect with the local community of women entrepreneurs.

One of the main focuses of the event was to encourage women entrepreneurs. A number of the featured presenters spoke about the importance of following dreams, being persistent and believing in onesself in the face of adversity–all qualities the TechWomen program is looking for when selecting participants.

Yahoo! Change Your World – Cairo 2012: Revolutionary Minds in Action

Guest Post by Fabiola Addamo

Fabiola preparing for her panel at the "Change your World Cairo 2012" conference.

Ebele Okobi opened up the Yahoo! Business & Human Rights Summit on Women and Social /Digital Media in Cairo with a powerful statement – “A determined woman is a force of nature”.  Simple words (but so eloquently said) have the ability to touch people’s core feelings deeply; and yes, if you did not know, feelings do matter especially when you pair them with facts, that are lived realities for the global women I had the honor to meet in Cairo.

The summit displayed a carousel of progressive voices. Women from across the globe (Egypt, Middle East, North Africa, the U.S., Europe) gathered and spoke about human rights/social justice activism, blogging, journalism, entrepreneurship, safety online, and shared views on how to use technology and media platforms to support virtual communication without borders.

GHC: Collaboration and Change Are in the Air

Guest post by Heather Ramsey

I am waiting to board my (very) delayed plane in Portland and reflecting on yet another enriching and diverse TechWomen experience. It was so satisfying to spend time with the seven Mentees who joined TechWomen staff at Grace Hopper this week. We are grateful to Google, NetApp and Huawei for sponsoring the scholarships to bring the seven Mentees here, as well as to the US Department of State for its ongoing and generous support of the program. I only wish all 37 TechWomen had been able to be here with us! This will actually be the case in 2012 when all 42 Mentees will go from their Silicon Valley mentorships to Baltimore for Grace Hopper and then on to DC to meet with Secretary Clinton and other State Department officials!

What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?

The six TechWomen Change Agent Scholars were fortunate to be in the audience for Sheryl Sandberg’s keynote address this morning at the Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing. Sheryl spoke to an audience of technical women, but her message resonated for women in every field. We list our favorite bits of wisdom below. To watch the keynote, visit https://www.facebook.com/Engineering.

“The number one driver of careers is growth, and there is no other industry in the world that is growing as quickly as tech.”

“What would you do if you weren’t afraid? Ask yourself and go do it.”

“Don’t leave before you leave. Best way to make room for yourself is to lean all the way in, until you have a real decision to make.”

“Dream big. We have an ambition gap…which results in an achievement gap.”

“Warren Buffet: One reason I was so successful was because I was competing with only half the population.”