International Women's Day - FITT Luncheon 2007

It's been a year since the last International Women's Day luncheon where Sen Helen Coonan spoke.

Unfortunately, with the mad workload recently, I didn't get around to organising a table for the female architects that I know and work with this year. To make up for my sins, I'll share my key learnings here:

Kate Vale, Sheryle Moon, and Semra Barutchu were the speakers of the event this year. They each gave interesting information about their organisations and work environments, and shared with us their personal experiences as women in IT. The highlight for me was their open and candid responses during the Q&A session, in which Kate Vale shared with us the things that she did that got her to where she is - taking risks; and taking time out to stay fit. And to the question "how can we attract more young women to the ICT industry", Sheryle provided the insight as a mother - encourage school girls to keep their options open, keep the maths and sciences subjects in their school electives, and it is all of our responsibility to be role models in this industry.

Feeling inspired, I caught up with Maggie Alexander - and committed to take part in the upcoming Women in IT Mentoring program. I look forward to sharing my life/career stories as a woman in IT, and hopefully helping younger women to make informed decisions.