Big Blog Post #4
On Friday 28th February 2020, we attended the League of Extraordinary Women’s Tech-formation 2020 conference. The conference featured women in innovation, tech and STEM sharing their experiences and advice as female founders. The conference was attended by approximately 200 people, including a group of high school students.
- “Leadership means to connect…” – League of Extraordinary Women Founder, Sheryl Thai on why she believes events like Tech-formation are so important.
- “Disrupt with respect.” Zoe Milgrom, Founder of Eugene spoke of how she was forced to reach out to competitors for their supply of genetic testing kits after an international postage mishap led to a large number of their customers’ kits going missing in the US Mail. Despite Eugene being a competitor, the fact that they had been respectful of others and hence earnt their place in the industry meant that suppliers agreed to help Zoe and her team, and a large batch of donated kits arrived at Eugene premises within hours of Zoe’s plea for help.
- Remember there is “no such thing as overnight success.” Jacqui Bull, Founder of Sidekicker recalled that in the first few years of starting Sidekicker, she, her business partner and her younger brother often completed jobs themselves in order to keep clients happy, while they built up their registered workers. Jacqui also quoted Ricky Gervais who said: “The best advice I’ve ever received is, no one else knows what they’re doing either.”
- Victoria Beal of Disco Labs encouraged everyone in the room to “Live your definition of success” and also stressed that “imposter syndrome is not a ‘syndrome’, there is nothing wrong with [those that experience it] it’s quite common.”
- And, some practical advice from Jessica Reesby, Founder of Reesby IoT Recruitment: “start collecting data, even if you don’t know how it could be used or why, just start…”
- “You can’t be what you can’t see” Sheryl Thai noted in her closing remarks for the day. It’s important for us all to support other women in tech and set an example to young girls interested in working in tech.
For more information about the League of Extraordinary Women’s Tech-formation conferences click here