Here come the girls!
The Cambridge Power Platform User Group Women in Tech Event 2023 was held virtually on March 3rd. It was timed to coincide with both Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day on March 8th.
One of the organisers of the event was Sharon Sumner. Sharon is a Microsoft MVP for Business Applications and M365 Apps and Services. Sharon is also CEO of Business Cloud Integrations Ltd developers of the SharePoint migration platform Casper 365. An inspirational woman right there!
I met Sharon while we were moderating a Microsoft Virtual Training event for Power Platform Fundamentals. I had mentioned that I was teaching my daughter Daisy the Power Platform and that she was on the event. Sharon immediately suggested we should both join the Cambridge Women in Tech event to share our mother and daughter experience! And of course we were delighted to accept.
As with most community events, it had taken a great team to put the event together. The speaker liaison had been very expertly handled by Amber, the technical side of things by Luke and questions in the chat by Sancho.
There was a very strong line-up of speakers on the day. The subjects ranged from technical deep dives to incredible career journeys.
- me and Daisy – Passing the Baton
- Anouck Fierens – Build your SharePoint knowledgebase more effectively with Viva Topics
- Charlotte Light – Failing Forwards
- Lesley Crook – Viva Suite – Turn a sour employee experience into something sweet!
- Divya Akula – Exploring Microsoft Syntex
- Sharon Weaver – Microsoft Teams – Everyday tips and tricks
- Tammy Miller – The Importance of accessibility to a website and a mobile
- Mica Hanson – One Note Tags and Outlook Task/To Do integration with OneNote
Passing the baton
Daisy and I were the first speakers of the day with our session ‘Passing the Baton‘.
I started by giving an overview on International Womens Day and the reasons behind it. Following that, I explained the difference between equality and equity, and the reason why equity is so important. And I finished by sharing some of my experiences, and the work I am doing to help drive parity.
I then followed my own advice and passed the baton …
New kid on the block ...
Daisy did not hesitate to grab that baton and run with it! I was so impressed by her confidence and warmth as she described her journey so far. Daisy’s enthusiasm shone through as she talked about the Power Platform and her experiences in the community.
Hopefully this is the first of many sessions Daisy will deliver during her Power Platform career. I was delighted to share this very proud mum moment with her!
Inspirational
Having delivered our session, we could then sit back and enjoy the rest of the day. There were some absolutely phenomenal speakers, and we definitely learned a lot!
I particularly liked the inspirational Keynote from Charlotte Light, Chief Digital Officer at Aztec Group. In her session ‘Failing Forward‘ Charlotte shared with us her process for learning from failure. Sharing how she’d overcome her own failures seemed to me to be the essence of supporting each other in difficult times. We do really rise by lifting others.
It was a wonderful event that I felt very privileged to be a part of. Hats off to Sharon and the team and to all of the speakers. I would encourage anyone who missed the event to check out the recordings of the day on Sharon’s YouTube channel.