7:30am – 9:00am Registration and Coffee

9:00am Welcome and Introductions
Who are you? What do you want to get out of this workshop? What is the biggest challenge you face in our IT career?

10:00am Turning Risk into Opportunity
Speaker: Karen Catlin, Entrepreneur and Executive, Karen Catlin Consulting

Do you avoid risks? If so, you’re not alone. Many of us often steer far away from risk because we’re afraid to fail, afraid of the criticism we might get, afraid of the negative impact it could have on our lives. Yet, risks can become rocket fuel for our careers, creating opportunities and opening doors.

In this talk, Karen will share her career journey, from software engineer to executive to advocate for technical women. Along the way, she learned to embrace risk, and she'll discuss strategies we all can use to evaluate and embrace risk in our professional lives.

11:00am Taking An Active Role in Building Your Own Career
Speaker: Katie Vale, Director of Digital Learning, Harvard University

This session will build upon a session that was presented at the NERCOMP 2014 Annual Conference and will take a deeper dive into putting these tips into practice. The book Lean In encourages women to take an active role in shaping their careers. In this session, we'll discuss ways to plan a productive IT career that also leaves room for parenting, elder care, schooling, spouses, and more. We'll talk about the realities of moving into management, building new skills, dealing with negative influences, and figuring out what's right for you.

12:00pm – 1:00pm Lunch

1:00pm - 3:00pm Current Challenges for Women In IT Careers
The afternoon will focus on ideas and challenges that are trending today and those that we are personally experiencing. What they are and how they impact us as Women in IT?

Some topics may include:
• Gamergate
• Shirtstorm
• The Importance of Male Allies
• Unconscious Biases

3:00pm End