Cisco Girl’s Power Tech – Inspiring Girls for a Career Path in STEM
On May 2nd, 2019 we had the pleasure and honor to be part of the global launch of Girls Power Tech Day celebration and with the partnership of Lake Washington School District we hosted in the Cisco office of Bellevue, WA this wonderful event. It was an amazing day full of energy and great sessions.
Before I go deep into the details, I would like to explain a little bit more of why this is so important and why Cisco is taking big part on this initiative:
The study shows that Women make up a mere 28 percent of workers in STEM fields globally, and women are less likely to enter and stay in technology-intensive roles. However, in the 13-18 years-old youth groups, there are many girls on science and technology show great enthusiasm and talent.
What prevents them from continuing to advance on the road of science and technology career?
Have you ever been in the trouble to choose your majors, because you didn’t know anyone who works in those fields and don’t understand what people in those fields do?
Have you ever been anxious at the time when applying for a new job because you didn’t fully understand what that job required?
We work at an amazing technology company. Why not be a mentor?
That is why Cisco launched globally the Girls Power Tech campaign. To make sure we can help closing the gap to motivate more girls to go for engineering and technology.
With the support of great volunteers, we proceed with the organization of this event to make sure the experience of our attendees is something they will always remember. Of course, I can’t move on with my article without highlighting the great work with the logistics, coordination and direction of Lindsey Zydel, Julie McBride and Nathalie Ritchie. It was awesome to see these great ladies taking this event to a whole new level. Without their commitment and support this event won’t be possible.
Rafael, Lindsey and Julie
Julie McBride and Lindsey Zydel help getting our partners to sponsor the swag and lunch for the girls and staff. We got everything we need to make sure the girls go back with great stuff and that was very remarkable!!
We started our day with a motivational video of Girls Power Tech Day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsbyF1JGpeg
Nathalie Ritchie was our 1st speaker of the day and she did a great session about social medial presence to build your own brand! That was a pretty good session! I really enjoyed Nathalie insights about how to build your profile and brand on multiple social medias.
After that I had the opportunity to talk about Corporate Social Responsibility and Cisco Give back program with the days of PTO we get for Time2Give and I explained the partnership of Cisco Systems + Habitat for Humanity with the #AmericasHouse project.
The main session was hosted from our Cisco RTP (Research Triangle Park) Campus in North Carolina and Alphonsine Imaniraguha, our bridge award winner spoke about her story and work with her foundation. It was pretty amazing to see Alphonsine talk about her journey and experience. She is a true hero and example for all of us.
Please visit this link to watch the video of Alphonsine Story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxEtJ0oiEaY
The students were not done yet and we had our Cisco employees to join us as volunteers to provide a speed mentoring with the students to ask them important questions about their career, daily activities, fun things about the job, etc. That is one of the sessions the girls like the most!!
And to close the day we had with us 2 employees that graduated from the CSAP (Cisco Sales Associate Program) program to speak about the experience from sales and engineering perspective and provide more details about the enrollment, process and benefits of the program of becoming an Account Manager and Systems Engineer.
At the end of the session we wrap-up the day and took a picture with the girls. It was really an awesome day and we enjoyed every moment if this great experience.
See you on my next article!!
Thanks!!
Rafael Ceara.-
