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Welcome Note by Annie Talvasto & Isidora Katanic and Keynote by Charlotte Yarkoni
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Nov 21, 2023
Welcome everyone to Women in Tech Virtual Conference. We are joined by Annie Talvasto & Isidora Katanic as the host of the conference. They both are going to be with us throughout the day and run the entire conference. You don't want to miss this video as the Charlotte Yarkoni - Vice President for Cloud and AI at Microsoft is the keynote speaker for this conference. Conference Website : https://www.2020twenty.net/womenintech C# Corner - Global Community for Software and Data Developers https://www.c-sharpcorner.com #csharpcorner #2020twentycon #womenintech #girlpower
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Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and for some of you maybe even it's the middle
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of the night. Welcome everybody at the Women in Tech virtual conference brought to you
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by the global community at C Sharp Corner. It's an absolute honor to be here today. My
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name is Isidora Katanic. I will be your virtual hostess and I am born in former Yugoslavia
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I'm raised in the Netherlands. I live in Switzerland. And today I'm hosting the conference from Amsterdam where I'm currently on a family visit
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But of course, I will not be doing this on my own. We have a lot of amazing female speakers for you today who are going to present
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And I will be doing this together with my co-host Annie. So Annie, welcome to the show. Please say hi and introduce yourself
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Hello, hello everyone. Very happy to be here and hello and good morning and good evening from my behalf as well to everyone
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So yeah, I am coming to you from Helsinki, from Finland, which is amidst a very bad heatwave at the moment
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So if I'm sweating or if I'm putting up my hair, it's just because it's very hot in here, but it's okay
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I think it's going to be a lovely time today. yeah yeah yeah well that's also uh also a little bit a new way of uh of events right we're uh we're
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all doing this virtually we're all uh at our home or uh yeah at our home office streaming literally
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from all over the world uh to bring the community uh together so annie how how has your uh work life
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changed in the past few weeks and months compared to like before everything uh happened well at least
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For me, well, I think everyone has experienced a lot of change and a lot of difficulties and I think good things as well in addition to that
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But for me, I work at Microsoft and we've always had a very good working from home policy
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So for me, not that much of a change, but still, I think everyone has experienced a lot
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And I work a lot with events and community. So that, I think, for me, has been the biggest change
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but I think it's also very positive in the sense that we can have
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these kind of great events where we can join a global community
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and have a nice discussion and an event together so I think that's an amazing part of this
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otherwise maybe a sad time as well yeah no fully agree on that
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actually Annie and I we have met at an in-person event last year at PolarComp
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hometown for you I guess right in Helsinki, Finland. And I also believe also for me, also same like you, of course
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we bring communities together at in-person events. Also, a whole new world opened to us
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as well and also for the women in tech I mean I just love it also how inclusive conferences are right now Everybody can join us from the comfort of their own homes everybody from around the world is here can join the conference today so
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they don't need to travel and yeah that's of course very nice and we also have a special
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message today do you want to highlight that any yeah i think we are all very excited um to have
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the first opening remarks that will be brought to you by a very amazing and a very great person
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and a speaker. I think we're very excited. And it's going to be a small remark from Charlotte
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Yarkoni, a Microsoft corporate vice president. So let's get to that. I'm so excited to join you for the 2020 Women in Tech Conference. Amidst everything that's
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happening in the world right now, it's an important time for women in tech and those interested in
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entering a career in tech to get together. I've always said diverse perspectives are important to
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everything we do. They make us better, more empathetic people, result in creative problem
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solving, and lead to innovation. Women's perspectives are important in the dialogues
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and deliverables of the tech industry, and that's only going to continue to be recognized as more
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and more of us move our careers in this direction. I'm Charlotte Yarkoni and I oversee commerce and
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ecosystems in our cloud and AI division at Microsoft. And while my colleagues these days
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are more diverse than ever before, I've often shared that I was one of only a few females in
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my college engineering track. I'm so happy that my experience is officially one of the past as
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women are becoming more and more significant force in the tech industry, from software engineering to
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operations, to marketing, to HR, the list goes on. And it's encouraging to see that women are more
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and more actively pursuing careers in STEM than any time in history. There is no denying that we're
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in the early days of an equality movement that is poised to incite real change. And this applies to
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gender as well. I'm really proud to be part of a company who's been helping break barriers for
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gender and pay equality for decades, but our work is nowhere finished. It's gaining momentum
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and yet there's still a lot to do. We're all potential change makers when it comes to equality
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Our actions and words matter regardless of how large or how small they may seem
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I'm excited to listen and learn as you share ideas for improving the gender pay gap
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gaining ground on female representation in tech careers, and the differences between thinking and
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doing, balanced with a healthy dose of technical talk and skill sharing as well
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Please enjoy your day and thank you for the difference you make in this world
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That was something that was amazing. Really great to hear such encouraging words from a great person Yeah absolutely And it also something that also you Annie and I we also of course deal with that
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We are here today for the Women in Tech virtual conference. We both agree that we find it very important
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that we as women should also empower women to have that stage today
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to have a lot of fantastic female speakers joining us today. who are making their time available to share their knowledge
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share their experiences, and, of course, also to use the platform and the C Sharp community, which is a global community
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to make everybody aware, of course, for the women in tech. And, yeah, is there something, Annie, you would like to share
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like how you have been working on that topic within Microsoft? Yeah, I think, well, for me personally
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and I think for Microsoft in general as well, even though I'm not here, obviously, as a complete representation of Microsoft altogether
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But it's very important, diversity and inclusivity. And especially for me, obviously
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women in tech is very close to heart. And in my past, I've always tried to work with those topics
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as much as I can. So if there's any opportunity, such as this event
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I think it's always good to take our time. and give some time to a good cause
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Yeah, and I think these issues touch every woman in this planet
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as well as I think any other gender that there is because these issues are not in a bottle or they are not just in a box
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They are always affecting each other. So if we can bring more goodness, goodwill, and generally more equality, I think everyone will benefit from it
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Every person on earth. So these are very important topics. Izzy, do you have any personal experiences or thoughts on this topic
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Yeah. Well, for the people who follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn, you will often see that I bring the topic to light
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I find it very important. I mean, I'm nearly for 10 years now in the IT community, working with tech conferences, worked for ISVs before
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And I've always, well, it is a fact. I mean, we will not deny it. It is a fact
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It is a little bit of a man's world. And of course, we want to step up
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Our voice is to be heard. And indeed, also, like Charlotte said, like the equality
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I find it very, very important that there is no gap and that everybody is included and equal
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whatever community gender country race I mean we all humans right And so yeah for me it also a very important topic And when the opportunity came to co together with you the Women in Tech Virtual Conference organized by C Sharp Corner then of course that something that I would love to help
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And like you said, like making time for this also for you. You're doing this really for the community
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Also for us in our time zones, we're both dealing with the heat wave
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It's weekend. It's the end of the day. We will be here for the next few hours
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so I think that also really shows the the passion and the motivation that that you and I both have
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for sure and I think it also really I think you have to thank or I have to thank all of us have
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to thank the great speakers that we have as well because they're giving their time as well and I
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think it's amazing that we can have and come together even during this kind of time or during
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heat wave even to discuss together important topics and highlight things and even just to talk about
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any range of topics that we have today coming up so it's yeah because we have a we have a packed
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agenda coming up we have two keynotes a couple sessions and yeah I'm also personally also very
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excited to listen and to watch the sessions that we have coming up today. And as well, like you
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said, it really is a group effort today. There are many people behind the scenes, but as well as on
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the virtual stage, who will be sharing their knowledge today. And we have seen, we have an
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audience from all over the world. What we would love is also to see this fraction on social media
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So if you're watching, if you're joining, share a photo from where you are today
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what time zone, what country, if you're in your home office, maybe you're in your garden
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You will see both Annie and I have the Twitter handle next to our name
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So share your photos, share your tweets, find us on social media
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And we would love to hear your voice as well, also on the topics which the speakers are presenting
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or anything else, of course, that we're discussing during the event today
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For sure. And I think when the next speaker comes on, I will be sharing a setup, what I'm working with the setup that I have on Twitter as well. So I think we can all have a small nice discussion on that side as well. So I'm looking forward to it
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Indeed. And like you said, with the setup, that's also something which we have also seen in the past few weeks, how we all had to change and pivot to like the more online world
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We saw speakers who usually speak at in-person conferences, getting their setups, their cameras, their microphones, some home office with like fully equipped
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And yeah, wonderful. I'm very excited. So looking at the time, I think we are ready
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Annie, to start welcoming our first keynote speaker
#Other
#Virtual Worlds