Wondering how to enter and make it in technology? 

There are many opportunities for working in technology and using it to foster change. You don’t have to have a STEM background or know how to code. If your core business is not in technology, you can still learn how to engage with technology-related fields and activities. If you have a tech business, learn different ways to scale.

This event will help you embrace the possibilities. Meet and network face-to-face with founders of tech businesses, women in corporations and entrepreneurs. Join round-table conversations to explore multiple facets of the technology business.

Donations of $10 or more to NYWIB  are welcome and appreciated, but not required. CLICK here if you would like to donate to support NYWIB’s mission and programs.

What you will learn
By the end of this webinar, you will be able to:

• Identify opportunities for engaging in technology-related fields and activities
• Understand how tech companies can scale
• Chart paths for your business to grow with the technology sector

Agenda

Panel Discussions

Listen to two panels of women – three who work in major technology companies like Google and founders of innovative small technology businesses in fintech, emotion-sensing technologies, and digital media. They will share their challenges and journeys and discuss ways to join, create, or engage with them.

Networking

There will be opportunity after the panel discussions for networking with panel speakers and other women.

One-on-One Mentoring

SCORE NYC mentors with expertise in marketing, business planning, finance and other areas will be there to meet with you after the panel discussion. Sessions are  free, one-on-one and confidential, but limited to those who sign up upon arrival.

PANEL MODERATOR

Dr. Subrina Oliver, CEO of O-High Technologies, LLC, and the Founder of the O-High Foundation.

Dr. Oliver began her career as a Technology specialist specializing in integration, implementation, and infrastructure. She subsequently became a Technology Educator and Director of STEM for K-12 Career and Technical Education. In 2014, she established the O-High Foundation, which administers The STEM Project Center and focuses on underrepresented STEM Talents in order to promote diversity, inclusion, and equitable access to the STEM-workforce.

SPEAKERS

Technology Professionals

Denia Del Cid, Site Reliability Engineer, Google

Originally from Honduras, Denia has had an amazing career trajectory at Google. After graduating from Florida State University with a BS in Computer Engineering, she was recruited to work in Google headquarters in California as a member of the Information Technology team, first as an intern and 6 months later as a full-time employee: becoming a go-to person for Googlers’ computer hardware and software needs. She subsequently worked in Ann Arbor Michigan, Dublin, Ireland, and NYC offices, climbing the engineering ladder from internal support to Site Reliability engineering. Along the way, she switched from a background in hardware engineering to software. Currently, she works on cloud virtualization of corporate machines.

Fabianna Rodriguez-Mercado, Cybersecurity Chief of Staff at Citi | Co-Leader Latinas in Technology

Fabianna Rodríguez-Mercado is the CISO Cyber Security Services (CSS) Business Manager / Chief of Staff at Citi, where she will oversee headcount management, financial activity, and communications. Before joining Citi, Fabianna worked for Accenture as an I.T. Project & Project Management Analyst and I.T. Support for Infrastructure Services of Accenture (I.S.A.), leveraging hybrid frameworks to manage projects across various market units.

Fabianna received her M.B.A.Cum Laude in Technology from Baruch College and B.B.A. Cum Laude in Marketing from the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico. She graduated Valedictorian from Per Scholas in February 2019, from Fullstack Academy Cybersecurity Bootcamp in September 2019, and studied International Marketing Management in Brazil and Italy. She is a co-Lead with Latinas in Tech in N.Y.C. and serves on the board of directors for Per Scholas in New York. Fabianna lives with her family in New York City and enjoys traveling and live music in her spare time.

Marysharon Owens, Chief Design Officer @ Optum 

Marysharon is the Head of Global Creative Studio @ Illumina. Marysharon leads business transformation for ventures of varying sizes and maturity; leveraging strategic frameworks most effective for the context: brand, creative, digital and infrastructure. She also serves on the Board of Directors of WIN: Women in Innovation

Prior to founding Mshare Consulting and standing up the Global Creative Studio at Illumina, a market leader in genomics sequencing, Marysharon led clients from Fortune 50 companies and early-stage ventures to leverage brand as a lens for corporate strategy as Executive Director of Business Transformation Consulting at R/GA.

Preceding R/GA, Marysharon built an inHouse creative agency as Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Bank of America, led customer experience as Global Director of Digital Business & Branding Strategy at Smiths Group, plc and advanced business results across all media channels as Managing Account Director and Creative Strategist at Target Corporation.

Previous to Target, Marysharon led Product Management and Professional Services for startup initiatives at American Well, a venture-backed Healthcare technology startup, and Microsoft’s New England Research and Development (N.E.R.D) Center in Cambridge, MA.

Marysharon received her Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and BSBA in Business Administration from Northeastern University.

Technology Entrepreneurs

Alexandra Ruiz, Founder, Poder Capital, Entrepreneur, Intrapreneur, Adjunct Professor at St. John’s University

Alexandra is the founder of Poder Capital is a NYC-based fintech company that will co-create with the Latinx community affordable financial products/services to support wealth-building in the present and for generations to come. Among other things, it offers a crowdlending platform for Latinx Small Business Owners (SBMOs).

As a BIPOC immigrant from the Dominican Republic,  she has an impeccable track record in driving organizational vision, financial planning, strategy and diversity, equity, and inclusion in the field. She has assumed leadership roles working with the NYC Vaccine Command Center, the NYC Taskforce on Racial Inclusion & Equity’s Vaccine Equity Sub-Committee, and NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs creating innovative service interventions and campaigns that have served over 200,000 immigrant New Yorkers.

​In 2009 she became one of the founders of the nonprofit organization Immigrant Advancement Matters (I.A.M.).

Miho Shoji, Co-Founder, Moodbit

Miho is a a serial entrepreneur who was born in Bolivia and then lived in Chile for 15 years before she moved to New York City. From her varied experiences, she is all to aware of how emotions impact productivity; so much so that she partnered up with Alfredo Jaldin to co-found Moodbit, with the mission to measure and improve the morale of employees. Moodbit uses emotion-sensing technology that relies on text, content and tone analysis of conversations, whether audio or textual such as email.

As part of the analysis, scores are attached to words, for example, to determine emotional states, i.e., the levels of stress, discontent, and sadness. Post-analysis Moodbit then suggests a slate of actions a team leader, manager or executive can take to improve morale. In turn, the hope is happier people are more productive, with less absenteeism and turnover.

She specializes in helping small businesses, organizations, nonprofits, and individuals focus their social media marketing efforts on reaching the right target audience with the right branding and messaging so that social media outreach consistently supports their overall marketing goals.

Her clients have included non-profits, entertainment companies, major retailers, communications companies, political candidates, small businesses, artists and authors, and start-ups.

Jaclyn Tacaronte, Founder, JMT Media

Jaclyn is an award-winning marketing and public relations professional with over 18 years of experience in both agency and client-side settings, serving Fortune 500 companies, including Canon, Puma, Harley-Davidson and Proctor & Gamble. She is currently the CEO & President of JMT Media, LLC., a New York certified M/WBE boutique marketing, public relations and design firm.

Among her professional recognitions, in 2011 she was awarded TED Electrical Magazine’s Best-of-the-Best Marketing Excellence Award for Best Print Advertising Campaign. JMT Media was listed as an official 2018 Honoree for Stars Under 40, sponsored by Schnepps Communications. In 2019, the Staten Island Economic Development Corporation listed Jaclyn Tacoronte as a “40 Under 40” Honoree and a nominee for the 2019 “Fastest Growing Small Business”. The 2020 U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA), New York District Office New York Small Business Champion of the Year.