We brought together more than two hundred visionary speakers for this summit - and the topics they spoke about were equally ambitious. The overall event was divided into central themes based on the topics we covered.

About This Session:

Are the multitude of initiatives designed to get more women and girls interested in working with technology working? Take a candid look at the good and not-so-good of the worldwide women in tech movement and hear what it will truly take to inspire and support more women in tech. [TC1]

Alana Karen

AUTHOR + GOOGLE

Sheila "Esi" Kasasa

FutureFIRST

Kate Isler

WMARKETPLACE

Brenda Darden Wilkerson

ANITAB.ORG

About the Speakers:

• Dwana Franklin-Davis, Reboot Representation - CEO - Dwana Franklin-Davis is a technologist that is passionate about moving the needle forward in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the tech industry. Her expertise and leadership are driving the Reboot mission to double the number of Black, Latina, and Native American women graduating with computing degrees by 2025.
• Alana Karen, Author and Director at Google - Alana Karen is an award-winning tech leader, author, and speaker whose work impacts many of our everyday lives (and also the mother of 3 great kids.)
• Sheila “Esi” Kasasa, Co-Founder, Executive Director, FutureFIRST - Third-generation woman-preneur creating pathways to the middle class through tech and entrepreneurship education for underserved communities.
• Kate Isler has over 20 years of international executive leadership gained working for fortune 100 companies to startups and have now turned my passion for supporting gender parity into a thriving business. She is the Co-Founder and CEO of TheWMarketplace, an eCommerce platform built to support women-owned businesses, services providers and gender balanced companies. The site is the Economic Engine for Women and earned revenue from the launch day.
• Brenda Darden Wilkerson, President & CEO, Anitab.org - Brenda Darden Wilkerson is an advocate for access, opportunity, and social justice for underrepresented communities in technology. Her guiding mission is to build an ecosystem of inclusive technology for all. She currently serves as the President and CEO of AnitaB.org, an organization that connects, inspires, and strives for greater equality for women technologists in business, academia, and government.
  

About This Session:

Despite a lot of mental wellbeing hype, workplaces still aren’t creating safe spaces where everyone can be themselves. This discussion will show how some organizations and innovators have been successful in using technology and metrics to reframe biases at work and forge truly inclusive cultures—beyond the appeasing narratives. [TC2]

Jennifer Brown

JENNIFER BROWN CONSULTING

Natalie Egan

TRANSLATOR, INC.

Leila McKenzie-Delis

DIAL GLOBAL

Myra Laldin

VRPERSPECTIVES

About the Speakers:

• Jennifer Brown, Founder and CEO, Jennifer Brown Consulting / Author of Inclusion (2016) and How To Be An Inclusive Leader (2019) - JENNIFER BROWN is an award-winning entrepreneur, dynamic speaker and diversity and inclusion expert responsible for designing workplace strategies that have been implemented by some of the biggest companies and nonprofits in the world. An acclaimed keynoter, Jennifer is the bestselling author of Inclusion: Diversity, The New Workplace and The Will to Change and How To Be An Inclusive Leader: Your Role in Creating Cultures of Belonging Where Everyone Can Thrive, and hosts the popular podcast, The Will to Change.
• Natalie Egan, CEO and Founder, Translator, Inc. - Natalie Egan is the CEO and founder of Translator, Inc., a company that empowers corporations, schools, nonprofits, trainers and consultants with cutting edge technology to make better diversity, equity and inclusion decisions and to drive culture change.
• Leila McKenzie-Delis, CEO/Founder of DIAL Global and MD of Leila McKenzie Associates - Leila is founder and CEO of DIAL Global (Diverse, Inclusive, Aspirational Leaders), a passionate business owner and entrepreneur, born in Hong Kong and adopted/brought up with her younger brother by British parents with origins from England, Scotland, and Wales.
• Myra LalDin, Founder of VRperspectives - Myra, the founder of VRperspectives, works at the intersection of VR and behaviour change. Her background is in business with a graduate degree in behavioural science and learning from Harvard University.

About This Session:

Almost everyday we hear stories of algorithms creating a more biased world either by design or negligence. Join this illuminating interview where we will talk about how we got here, and more importantly, how we can set the algorithms right. [TC3]

Heather Krause

WE ALL COUNT + DATASSIST

About the Speakers:

• Rohit Bhargava: Rohit is the founder of Non-Obvious Company and the #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Non-Obvious Megatrends. He has dedicated his career to helping leaders and professionals learn to see what others miss. Rohit also co-founded Ideapress Publishing with his wife Chhavi and previously spent 15 years as a marketing strategist for Ogilvy and Leo Burnett. He also occasionally teaches marketing, innovation and storytelling at Georgetown University.
• Heather Krause, PStat, is a data scientist with 20+ years in the field. She’s a cross-sector thought leader in data equity issues. She works on government, social sector, education, and corporate data projects. Her first company Datassist Inc. works globally with national governments, trans-national corporations, and the largest players in the NGO space. Her cutting-edge approach to project design, data collection, analysis, reporting and visualization have placed her in high demand as a project lead, a crisis consultant and a speaker on the subject of data equity.

About This Session:

What can gaming communities teach us all about building more inclusive teams? Learn from the pioneers of several popular movements within the gaming industry to create a more welcoming culture through technology, accommodations and, most importantly, attitudes. [EX2]

Melissa Boone

MICROSOFT

Kate Sanchez

BUT WHY THO?

Dr. Kishonna Gray

AUTHOR / PROFESSOR

About the Speakers:

• Courtney Craven, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Can I Play That? - Courtney is a writer, captionist, and accessibility expert in gaming and higher education from Chicago.
• Melissa Boone, Senior Research Manager, Microsoft - Melissa Boone is a social psychologist who uses her expertise in human behavior, social interaction, and designing and conducting behavioral research to provide insight on user needs and preferences for Xbox's first-party studios.
• Kate Sanchez, Founder and Podcast Host, But Why Tho - Scholar by day and podcast host by night, Kate Sanchez has made an academic career of proving pop culture matters and tackling harder issues like race, gender, sexuality and identity.
• Dr. Kishonna Gray, Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago - Dr. Kishonna L. Gray is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Gender and Women’s Studies at UIC whose work intersects identity and new media, with a particular focus on gaming.