WIT@UCSF at Sharecase 2019

Clockwise from top left: Panelists Kay Burke, Sara Murray, Shannon Weber, Kevin Souza, and Pranathi Sundaram; event materials and WIT@UCSF logo buttons; Kat Li and Sarah Ngo at booth; audience members at the panel discussion; Rosemary Yau, Clarice Estrada, Alyssa Tecklenburg, Ana Buenaventura, Sarah Ngo, and Suria Sadat at booth; Jenica Cimino and Sarah Ngo at booth.

On Thursday, October 10th, WIT@UCSF held a panel discussion on gender equity in technology at the UCSF Sharecase conference at Mission Bay.

We convened five speakers, Kay Burke, Sara Murray, Kevin Souza, Pranathi Sundaram, and Shannon Weber, from areas like informatics, governance, and management who were in a diverse range of roles and vantage points within our organization. They discussed topics including recruiting a diverse group of employees, how to support professional development of people who are underrepresented in technology, and using the lens of diversity and inclusion to inform decision-making about technology development and deployment. About 60 people attended the session and about half stayed for the accompanying mixer that was immediately after.

With prime real estate in the main exhibit hall, we also had a booth where we connected with current and prospective members about what we do and what we're all about. We want to give a huge thanks to our volunteers, Brittney Augerlavoie, Jenica Cimino, Clarice Estrada, Shannon Weber, and Rosemary Yau, who gave their time, energy and warmth at the booth to share our mission. With their help we signed up nearly 100 new members!

If you attended, thank you for participating and showing leadership and the conference organizers how important this topic is. We’d love to hear your feedback—positive and constructive—so we can continue improving our offerings. If you couldn’t make it, we hope to create space for many more conversations like this for you to join in the future.

Power on!

Below is the panelist bios for your reference.