March 8 is just around the corner, and it happens to be International Women’s Day (IWD). IWD takes place each year on March 8 during Women’s History Month, marking a time to celebrate women’s achievements, call for change, and advocate for equality. All month long, NCWIT will highlight past and present women in technology. We hope you’ll be inspired to participate along with us!
Put a Plan Together
Planning a celebration of women and technology for IWD doesn’t require a lot of money, time, or effort: consider doing something simple like hosting a brown-bag lunch or pizza party, sending an email to staff, acknowledging an outstanding technical woman, supporting a women’s affinity group event, or blogging about it.
Download NCWIT’s International Women’s Day-in-a-Box for additional ideas and planning guides to help you generate and keep up momentum. Use the logistical tips in the Practical Guide to plan your events and avoid potential pitfalls. Peruse the Activities Guide, and choose which activities and event ideas will work best with your workplace. You’ll also find templates for press releases, awards-planning guides, and promotional materials.
Participate with Women Techmakers
NCWIT is a proud partner of Google’s Women Techmakers Global Event Series — events geared towards increasing visibility, community, and resources for women in technology. These summits will be hosted at Google offices and locations around the world, and will feature panel discussions, technical talks with female technology leaders, career-planning discussions, networking opportunities, and more. Space is limited and based on applications. Complete your two-minute application today, or follow #womentechmakers to catch the action.
Celebrate Past and Present Achievements of Women in Tech
NCWIT Pioneer Award Winners
The NCWIT Pioneer Award recognizes technical women whose lifetime contributions have significantly impacted the landscape of technological innovation. From NASA mathematicians to programmers, Pioneer Award recipients continue to inspire generations of young women to pursue computing and make history in their own right. We look forward to honoring Dr. Christine Darden and Katherine Johnson as the 2015 recipients at the NCWIT Summit on May 19, 2015 in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
Want to help us recognize them? We’re calling for original creations (artwork, code, writing, letter, poetry, photographs, etc.) to be included in a scrapbook that will be presented to this year’s Pioneer Award winners at the 2015 NCWIT Summit. Send us your submissions by May 1, 2015 at www.ncwit.org/scrapbookproject.
NCWIT Entrepreneurial Heroes
Take some time on Sunday, March 8 to listen to stories from the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Heroes collection, a series of magazine-style audio interviews highlighting women entrepreneurs in technology careers. Learn why they chose to be entrepreneurs, and share your favorite advice with #MakeItHappen.
National Winners of the 2015 NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing
We recently selected 35 high school women as national winners of the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing, an award that recognizes young women for their outstanding aptitude and interest in computing, proven leadership ability, academic performance, and plans for post-secondary education. These national winners will be honored at a Bank of America Technology Stars of the Future Showcase & Awards Ceremony on March 7, 2015 in Charlotte, North Carolina. You can follow #NCWITAiC15 for event updates.
The NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing is a multi-tiered competition that includes recognition at the national level (sponsored by Bank of America) and at the local level (sponsored by Microsoft), serving 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and U.S. overseas military bases. NCWIT will also recognize 355 national runners-up, as well as 1,618 local winners and runners-up at 60 regional affiliate award ceremonies nationwide. The NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing has recognized over 4,670 talented young women since its inception in 2007.
