It’s National Women’s History Month! As a women-led IT staffing and project services company, we look forward to highlighting female trailblazers in tech every March, and all year long! Women have been instrumental in shaping the technology landscape since its earliest days, and likewise, KellyMitchell has been driven by diversity since day one.
Our CEO and founder, Cassandra Sanford, leads our team by example as a board member of the WBDC [Women’s Business Development Center of Chicago] and as a WBE Hall of Fame awardee, selected by the American Institute of Diversity and Commerce. We’re proudly 15+ years WBENC-certified, and we have a long-standing commitment to fostering a diverse and inclusive workforce while helping our clients achieve the same. Let’s take a look at just a handful of the many women who continue to inspire us — from cracking complex codes to founding tech giants!
Impactful Women Breaking Barriers in Tech
Maya Angelou, a St. Louis native [shout out to our HQ!] says it best — “Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.” Each of these fearless women has stood up and made a lasting impact for all women in the tech industry.
With AI top of mind, first up is Dr. Fei-Fei Li, the co-director of Stanford's Human-Centered AI Institute and former Chief Scientist of AI/ML at Google Cloud, Dr. Li is a leading expert in artificial intelligence. She is best known for creating ImageNet, a massive dataset of labeled images that has been instrumental in the development of deep learning and image recognition technology. Dr. Li is also a vocal advocate for responsible AI development and works to ensure that AI is used for good!
Jessica Matthews is doing groundbreaking work within the tech sustainability realm. Matthews invented a power-generating soccer ball, allowing children in impoverished regions to study late into the evenings with this light-producing invention. Notably, Matthews is also the founder and CEO of Unchartered Power. The IoT platform is working to create solutions to improve the efficiency and accessibility of energy, water, air, transit, and connectivity infrastructure. Bridging the diversity in tech gap, Kimberly Bryant founded Black Girls CODE, aiming to empower young women of color to become software innovators and entrepreneurs. Her initiative tackled the intersectional underrepresentation women of color face within technology fields. Following in her footsteps, new CEO Cristina Jones works to ignite and expand the vision, broadening the curriculum while increasing the age limit to reflect a renewed emphasis on workforce development. Jones notes that “an entire demographic is missing in the rooms where tech innovations happen.”
The efforts towards change continue with additional champions like Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code. Saujani's non-profit organization works to close the gender gap in tech by exposing girls to coding and computer science. Her work inspires young girls to pursue their tech ambitions. As we know well, women bring unique perspectives, problem-solving approaches, and essential creativity to technology!
Another major impactful female tech trailblazer is Vivienne Wei, VP of Salesforce. She leads the operations and strategic execution for the technology organization while advocating for working mothers every step of the way. Vivienne Wei once said:
Be fearless and own your seat at the table. You were hired to provide perspective to enrich discussions and make the company better. It is important that others hear your point of view — while your experience and knowledge likely seem common to you, it might enlighten others. You will also learn more as you become the one who’s ‘in the arena!
These women and many others continue to inspire us and build a more equitable and diverse tech industry! Let’s celebrate these women's achievements as they continue to break down barriers and do really cool work. “Empowered women empower women.” — Happy National Women’s History Month!
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