They lift your spirits, prompt you to think, make you feel grateful and inspire you to do more. They connect you to our community, shining a spotlight on what's good about our city. They're stories that are Uniquely Milwaukee, sponsored by the Milwaukee Public Library.
We’re in the middle of October, which since 2021 has meant we’re also in the middle of Wisconsin Tech Month, an initiative that invites everyone to dive deeper into the world of technology and network with people in — or curious about — the industry.
Each week of the month gets its own focus, and we’re coming up on the one that highlights an underrepresented group in tech. Women in Tech Week offers a variety of events every day from Oct. 20-26, including an Oct. 23 program being held at Radio Milwaukee that celebrates women trailblazers in the technology space.
Depending on your research, you’ll find women make up only about 30% of the tech workforce. It’s a number that innovators and advocates want to boost, and they’re doing so in part by sharing stories of women with varied experience in the field.
As the CEO of Milky Way Tech Hub in Milwaukee, Nadiyah Johnson is one of those experienced individuals. But, as the founder of Wisconsin Tech Month, she’s taken on that even bigger task of making sure the stories of women in tech reach the next generation.
“When I’m able to help these young girls see that their interests — whether it be fashion, whether it be sports, whatever their interest is — technology plays a role in that field, that's when they start to really lean in,” Johnson said. “And the future of work is being entrepreneurial. So in a lot of our programs, we teach them the technical aspect, but also creating ideas and breathing life into those ideas using technology.
“That's what really helps them to see that, ‘Hey, my ideas are important, and they're useful and can really benefit society.’”
Allison Spohn shares that drive to capture the interest of the industry’s future leaders. In addition to working in tech as a patch manager at Molson Coors, she’s also the Southeast Region Board president for the nonprofit Women in Technology Wisconsin Inc. Spohn added some perspective about women’s tenure in tech and the benefit of exposure to technology to younger learners.
“Most women leave tech by the age of 35,” Spohn said. “So in terms of obstacles, I think there's a lot of them, right? We've hit on a couple already in terms of making tech equitable, making it accessible to the community. But I think a lot of it just comes to exposure to opportunities — getting young girls in front of tech, seeing what they can do.
"These middle schoolers, high schoolers, even at the elementary level, get them introduced to tech. See how it can help them in their studies but also beyond, whether they end up in technology or they end up in another industry.”
You’ll hear more from Johnson and Spohn in this episode, and if you’d like to connect with more people making an impact in the industry, stop by Radio Milwaukee at 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 23 for “Women Tech Trailblazers: A Night of Lightning Talks and Leadership.”
