We can’t wait for you to read this blog post! It’s monumental, as it recaps our first post-pandemic, in-person GLAM Event! This immersive, two-day program occurred at the San Jose, CA Computer History Museum. Sixty girls ages 8 to 12 successfully completed our STEAM and leadership program, coded a maze game, created inspiring vision boards, and confidently delivered team business pitches!
This premiere GLAM Event was sponsored by iTalent Digital (iTD). Other notable Event sponsors were National Mentoring Day, The Commission on the Status of Women - Santa Clara County, Black Lamb Media, LLC, JP Graphics, Tooli-Art, Elevate.RA, Mermaid GlamKidtique, and The Kindness Rocks Project.
BIG shout-outs to GLAM staff who managed this event and the champion iTD employees who volunteered! Additional corporate volunteers from various sponsors were business judges and provided session support.
We are also grateful to our incredible GLAM Mentors: Andrea Lopez, Diya Dalal, Isela Lopez, Kamalika Karthikeyan, Kara Sorial, Marissa Hernandez, Mugdha Sharma, Navya Tyagali, Nicole Wagenbrenner, Nisha Shenoy, Tina Engel, Vaishnavi Raghu, and Zoe Matthews. These enthusiastic young women aged 13+ came from California, Texas, and Arizona to be positive role models for our attendees!
Amazing C-suite women volunteered as Speakers and session leaders throughout this GLAM Event. These incredible women were incredible sources of inspiration, empowerment, and positivity for all in attendance. Powerful Senior female executives included:
Renée La Londe, CEO and Founder of iTalent Digital and of GLAM
Trina Celeste Limpert, CEO and Founder of RizeNext Corp and Co-Founder of Tech-Moms.org
Chelsey Baker, CEO and Founder of National Mentoring Day
Anne Halvorsen, Executive Director at Chase Bank
Julie Lane, Chief of Staff at Cisco
Maitri Chattopadhyay, Senior Software Engineer at Disney Streaming
Aparna Singhal, Vice President and General Manager of Product Management at American Express
Jessica Steindorff, Producer at Nine Two Six Media, LLC and Neurodiversity Advocate
Ishita Majumdar, Vice President of Data Analytics Platform at eBay
Guest speaker for Young Entrepreneurship was ten-year-old Gabriella Ehrlich Rodriguez, CEO and Founder of Gabzilla. Gaby shared her love for art and upcycled clothing through her inspiring t-shirt business.
We were also very lucky to have Marisusan Trout, Partner at WINNAR Group, serve as an Event Emcee extraordinaire, a Keynote Speaker, and a Business Pitch mentor. This GLAM Event wouldn’t have been as successful without everyone's contributions and support!
The girls also participated in two creativity sessions - computer coding and vision boarding. With Maitri Chattopadhyay, Senior Software Engineer at Disney Streaming, as the coding lead, the girls ventured far into the coding curriculum of creating a maze game using the Scratch platform.
The girls also created amazing vision boards with Tooli-Art paint pens, inspirational stickers, as well as empowering words and phrases that reflect their hopes, dreams, and goals with Team GLAM.
The culminating sessions of this program involved presentations and mentoring with Chelsey Baker, CEO and Founder of National Mentoring Day, award-winning expert professional public speaking and business mentor. Chelsey helped each team improve their public speaking skills and perfect their business pitch through 1:1 mentoring.
Ten teams pitched their business ideas to an audience of supportive parents and a judges’ panel of C-suite women. The girls let their personalities shine through and confidently answered the judges’ follow-up questions. Three teams were chosen as business pitch winners: 2nd Place - Team 4 , 1st Place - Team 8, and Overall Winners - Team 2.
GLAM, iTD, mentors, volunteers, and sponsors were incredibly impressed by all the girls - for standing up in front of hundreds of people, using their power stances, projecting their voices, and presenting their portion of their team’s business pitch. Sincere congratulations; you are all winners in our eyes! 🤩
To find out how you can become involved with GLAM and in helping close the gender gap in STEAM and leadership, engage with us! Watch some program content on GLAMtv, read some recent blog posts, encourage your business partners to sponsor a GLAM Event, follow @GLAMReadyToLead on socials, donate, or email us for more ideas at info@glam-readytolead.com .