From Twitter hashtags to Google videos to events inviting youth to see how a tech office runs, major tech brands made a concerted effort to recognize this year’s International Women’s Day. A few of our favourites are below.
Google: #OneDayIWill
Chances are if you visited Google’s homepage today, you saw this video: a transcontinental journey asking 337 women and girls in 13 countries, including such luminaries as naturalist Jane Goodall and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, to complete the sentence, “One day I will…”
Twitter: #SheInspiresMe
Meanwhile, the good folks at Twitter produced a video honouring the many women who inspire them. (The most popular answer? Mom.)
Facebook: The Atlas of Beauty
Through its Facebook Stories arm, the social media giant partnered with photographer Mihaela Noroc to capture the stories of seven women around the world who are trying to make the globe a more equal place:
- Iceland’s Þórunn Antonía Magnúsdóttir, whose sisterhood-focused Facebook group has more than 50,000 members – nearly a third of Iceland’s female population;
- Winnipeg painter and First Nations activist Jackie Traverse, who uses Facebook to give First Nations women safe rides home;
- Abu Dhabi’s Sana Odeh, the founder and chair of Arab Women in Computing, an organization that helps thousands of women from the Arab world develop computer science skills;
- São Paulo, Brazil’s Tabatha Moraes, whose Facebook networking group connects more than 21,000 female entrepreneurs throughout the country;
- Pune, India’s Urvashi Patole, founder of the Bikerni, an all-women’s motorcycle association that she started on Facebook;
- New York City-based Evita Robinson, founder of the Nomadness Travel Tribe, a Facebook group that inspires thousands of African-American women to travel the world;
- And Noroc herself, whose Facebook-based “Atlas of Beauty” project has celebrated women across the world and attracted millions of followers along the way.
You can watch Facebook’s official interview with Noroc, conducted by Time Magazine’s Callie Schweitzer, below.
I'm live at Facebook here to celebrate international women's day!
Posted by The Atlas of Beauty on Tuesday, 8 March 2016
Microsoft: #womenofmicrosoft
Microsoft Corp. took a similar tack, unveiling a series of portraits showcasing nine Canadian women who have used the company’s technology on their paths to success, alongside the female executives who make up Microsoft’s Canadian leadership team – including Microsoft Canada CEO Janet Kennedy, pictured below (right) with B5 Media CEO Elaine Kunda (left).
Cisco: Girls Power Tech
To support this year’s theme for International Women’s Day, Step it Up for Gender Equality, multinational tech giant Cisco Systems, Inc. will be hosting Girls Power Tech (below), a one-day event that invites thousands of girls between the ages of 13 and 19 to visit more than 90 Cisco locations across 56 countries to learn more about the industry and how their careers can lead there.
Ryerson’s DMZ: A Panel from the Margins
Closer to home, Ryerson University’s DMZ is collaborating with TechGirls Canada to present “A Panel from the Margins: 2016 and Still Missing at the Table,” a seven-person panel that will discuss the “ethics of diversity, challenges of being outliers in our sectors, and our responsibilities to each other to ensure there is equity in their efforts towards equality,” according to co-organizer Saira Muzaffar, TechGirls’ head of strategy and outreach.
Boasting such guests as former politician Olivia Chow, journalist Desmond Cole, and Wealthsimple’s head of product and design, Huda Idrees, the March 8 event is already sold out – but readers will be able to watch a livestream here.
