Despite some travel mishaps (aka accidentally going to the Harvard main campus instead of the new engineering building on the other side of the Charles), I am glad that I took time out of my weekend to attend the conference and learn more about women in tech industries. The different presenters were all impressive and shared many important lessons about their experiences.

Of course, most of my time was spent attending speaker events. I enjoyed Nietfield’s humorous and down-to-earth talk breaking down the myth that choosing tech means ignoring creative passions. I had never considered how tech builds skills that can prove invaluable in creative pursuits as well, such as patience, accepting failure, and asking for help. Thanawala’s keynote on why women fail to be promoted in the workplace was brutally honest and useful in guiding my thoughts on what I should work on next. Her advice was based on research as well as her own experience as a woman who had worked in the tech industry for years, and her examples illustrated her points vividly. The talk was so engaging that most of the crowd stayed when she went half an hour over the scheduled time to finish the presentation.

I overall enjoyed the experience, met numerous impressive women working in different sectors of the tech industry, and would recommend it to anyone interested in it next year.