Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:32
#WomenInTech | #AskSwell Are you a woman in tech? Who supported you on your journey to get there?
So I think that Tech Girl represents her understanding that there's never enough platforms to build people up in their aspirations and connect them to the right people. So I'm going to let Lynn talk about Tech Girl and its purpose. But for those of you listening and who want to reply to this immediately, I'm asking that simple question. If you are a woman in tech, was there a person or an organization that supported you along your journey to get there?
So with that said, we need more advocacy for women. Mentorship is great when you're coming out of high school and college. I think that's very good. But a good career counselor should be able to help you determine your career path and finding people who can tell you what to do. The correct boot camps, correct classes can show you exactly what skills you need. But at the end of the hey, we're out there. We're getting the skills. We're getting the knowledge
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 0:56
Boom. Scharlette that's an amazing testimonial. And I really I've been enjoying your stories about when you your job ended and the kinds of tenacity that you showed to make sure you were out there and recognize that the tribe was going to get behind you and help you and put forth really good ideas. It's a lonely road sometimes
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Lynn Mulv
@lynnfernando · 4:15
And that's our goal long term, is to have this platform, to have a community where peers, mentors, investors, and allies can go and support first time female founders, because it is a lonely road. It is definitely an area that is, again, still underserved. And honestly, had I had this platform 1015 years ago, my career would have taken a different trajectory. I was a corporate entrepreneur
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:08
And I'm wondering if there's a particular person or a group of people or an experience that really shined a light on the power of networking and community and things like that. I'm also going to invite the founder of Swell. She's also the CTO, and she's a great person to talk to about women in tech and about entrepreneurship. So I'll tag her here and I think she'll be able to also speak to the idea of who she has mentored or who has mentored her
Lynn Mulv
@lynnfernando · 3:33
In fact, it was only later in my career at Disney that they actually implemented a mentorship matching program and obviously large organization, lots of different micro cultures, micro.org. But through that formalized process, I think there was a willingness for other female executives to mentor other women leaders, especially up and coming executives and managers. But I say that because I've talked about this with friends of mine
Sudha Varadarajan
@sudha · 4:56
If they don't do that, and then they encounter all the struggles of competing out there in the real world for the first time when they graduate, then I think that's when there is a lot of catch up that they have to do and then that's when they need the most help. But I would say that for me, the biggest lesson that I learned through my own life and I'm not going to say I didn't have good mentors
Sudha Varadarajan
@sudha · 4:37
Now, I have played mentor for members in my family, for friends and so on. Time and again, I have advised many people on their career journeys, especially when it comes to entrepreneurship, when they embarked on entrepreneurship. But I think, again, I think the real underlying factor and I have advised both men and women in this path, and I will say that the underlying fundamental attribute that I always ask someone is a do you have the necessary skills to do what you're doing?
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:08
Just sharing with us the tips or the stats of patents between gender so we understand what's going on and how we can support more awareness. It takes a lot to create something to finally get a patent. It takes support from others, it takes organizations. It takes years of trial and error. And it really is the imbalance of society. Still, we're trying to sort of figure that out