Ada Lovelace Awards & Women In Tech

Earlier this month, I was nominated for the Ada Lovelace Women In Tech Awards. The award acknowledges the work of amazing women doing incredible things in the New Orleans tech space.

More than anything, I’m honored to be nominated in the space of so many incredible women. From #STEM PHD’s to startup founders trying to find unique ways to solve unique problems, the New Orleans tech space definitely includes some inspiring women.

This is a milestone for me as a User Experience Designer, Startup Co-Founder and CEO of two technology companies.  As more and more women face barriers to entering the tech space, I am hopeful when so many of us are doing it anyway.

In the words of Crystal McDonald, last year’s Ada Lovelace winner and CEO of Acrew,

“Still surprised to see a woman killing it in tech? Catch up. We’re made for this.”

But we’ve still got work to do. Today, here’s what the numbers look like:

• 25% of IT jobs held by women.
• 5% of startups are women owned.
• 11% of executives at Fortune 500 companies are women.

Here’s the good news:

• 18-20% of all engineering students are women. This is a large increase over the past 25 years.
• 28% of all US Bachelors in CS degrees are held by women.

And we are made for this. More than anything, we belong to the dialogue of innovation as more than just consumers. We belong to the conversation as creators as well.

Tomorrow night we’ll gather at the Look Far offices to honor the contributions of women in tech.  While winning would be nice, what’s most important and exciting is being in the company of all of these women.

It will be all about looking at the roster of talent and knowing that we were part of paving the way. Cheers to that!