WiT-ACE (Women in Technology-Accelerated Career Experiences) today said that more than 10,000 women professionals registered for professional upskilling at “ALL in ALL Week” (AIAW), a three-day virtual summit organised to coincide with International Women’s Day. AIAW features India’s first-ever virtual skilling zone for women professionals with 35 skilling booths and mentoring sessions run concurrently over three days.
Participants at “ALL in ALL Week” had an opportunity to upskill their technical, functional, managerial or soft skills. The three most popular and sought-after skills by women professionals were Building your Personal Brand, Networking, and Negotiation Skills. Among technology skills, maximum demand was seen for AI and Deep Learning. Under business management, sessions on financial planning and entrepreneurship attracted high levels of interest. There were over 2,500 attendees across all sessions on Day 1.
The AIAW event also featured over 10 panel discussions and an Open Mic for all participants, celebrating women professionals from diverse backgrounds including technology, sports, media, education and entertainment. Key speakers at the event included Anil Bhasin, Managing Director and VP at UIPath India, Amit Kalra, Managing Director and Head of Swiss Re, Debopama Sen, Managing Director and Head of Treasury & Trade Solutions for Singapore and ASEAN at Citibank, Neelam Dhawan, Former India MD at Microsoft and HP and Independent Director, and Kirthiga Reddy, Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers. Juhi Chaturvedi, National-award winning script writer for Piku (2015) and media personalities Neeti Palta and Radhika Vaz were also part of the panel sessions.
“ALL In ALL Week aimed to create actionable and real-world impact for women professionals, with the ultimate vision of achieving a gender-balanced future in a COVID-19 world. We recognise that this vision is impossible to realise until we have a large enough pool of highly skilled, ambitious and motivated women ready to make their mark professionally, and this summit was our endeavor towards building and nurturing this pool and expanding it in due course of time. We are glad that this summit also provided women with a platform to share their stories, inspire, motivate and learn from one another,” says Anuranjita Kumar, Founder and CEO, WiT-ACE.
The summit’s corporate partners include Credit Suisse, NASDAQ, IBM, Macquarie, Barclays, UiPath, Swiss Re, Tata Motors, MorningStar, PayU, Bajaj Allianz, Zaggle, OLX and Sony Pictures Networks. Skilling partners include NASSCOM, Grey Atom, Knolscape, BeyonDiversity, Kuvera, Jacob’s Creek, WhatsApp, Tech Mahinda, JIGSAW Academy, PEEquity, GLOW, Publicis Sapient, Champion Woman, Pratyusha Kothi, KPISOFT and Merxius.
“With skills as the new professional currency in this rapidly changing world, organizations are looking for a talent pool with a growth mindset, that will advance their mission and their clients missions. So its only critical for people to continue to upskill themselves in areas that will unleash their full potential and help deliver their best. Given this, we at IBM India are proud to partner with WIT ACE in their Skilling Summit that aims to help professionals advance their capabilities and scale up their careers,” says Usha Shrikant, Senior Partner & Client Services Leader, IBM India.
Gopi Bahl, Associate Director at Macquarie Group said, “To build a truly inclusive and equitable workplace, we invest in skill building for our people and offer continuous learning opportunities according to their needs. By empowering staff through a tailored approach, we hope to make them feel motivated and have confidence in trying out new things and tackle challenges differently.”
According to a recent survey conducted by WiT-ACE to ascertain the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Indian female workforce, 65% of the respondents agreed to their career being negatively impacted, and 74% of the view that women had been more disproportionately impacted. On a more positive note, three-fourths (75%) forecast things returning to normal within 12-18 months (by mid-2022). This sentiment was not uniform across industries, with industries such as retail/manufacturing seeing a much more severe impact compared to industries such as IT & ITES, Banking and Financial Services.
About WiT-ACE
Women in Technology (WiT India)-ACE (Accelerated Career Experience for Women) is a platform focused on increasing women participation in the STEM workforce. WiT partners with organisations and works with communities of women at workplaces, colleges and schools to ensure that women talent transitions into a capable workforce. The platform aims to be a change agent for more gender-balanced workplaces with a mission to bring a pivotal change in individual mindsets and at workplaces that enable women to be in 50% decision making roles.
For more information, long onto wit-ace.com/witx/homepage.
