The WITI conference, one of the prominent conferences for women professionals globally, recently took place in Silicon Valley on May 31- June 2, 2015. Vasudha Badri-Paul presents highlights.

Over 1,000 women professionals attended this year’s WITI conference in Silicon Valley, with keynote speakers including prominent businesswomen from iconic technology related companies. Events included speaker sessions, coaching circles, startup village, executive auction, hall of fame inductee dinner, and EXPO/Exhibition of companies.

WITI was founded in 1989 by Carolyn Leighton in recognition that women weren’t being paid equally in the technology industry. The percentage of women in the US IT workforce has actually been on the decline since around then.

Keynote speakers included academy award winning actress and humanitarian, Patricia Arquette (“Boyhood”), who gave a stellar speech on gender pay equality.

Keynote speakers included Academy Award-winning actress and humanitarian, Patricia Arquette (Boyhood), who gave a stellar speech on gender pay equality. (Courtesy: Vasudha Badri-Paul)
Keynote speakers included Academy Award-winning actress and humanitarian, Patricia Arquette (Boyhood), who gave a stellar speech on gender pay equality. (Courtesy: Vasudha Badri-Paul)

The Women in Technology Summit is accentuating the positive, shining a light on the accomplishments women have made in the technology industry. Among those women were five new inductees into the WITI Hall of Fame:

  • Cheemin Bo-Linn, CEO of global business consulting group Peritus Partners and an innovator in the area of getting young girls into the technology field via such programs as TechGYRLS.
  • Nichelle Nichols, best known for her portrayal of “Lieutenant Uhura” on the USS Enterprise in the TV show Star Trek but also a strong advocate of diversity at NASA.
  • Pam Parisian, CIO of AT&T and a longtime telecom executive.
  • Sheryl Root, a software management consulting professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Silicon Valley and CEO of consultancy RootAnalysis.
  • Marie Wieck, GM of Middleware at IBM. She has worked at IBM for over 30 years.