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Among first year college students, women are less likely than men to say they intend to major in STEM. Black and Hispanic adults are less likely to earn degrees in STEM than other degree fields and continue to make up a lower share of STEM graduates relative to their share of the adult population.
How can Women & Hi Tech and our members better advocate to close the STEM gap for youth, women, and the underrepresented? Join Linda Calvin, Poonam Gill, and ClickSide Chat Facilitator Tori Harper Mercado for a moderated discussion on advocacy. We will discuss what it means to be an advocate and how Linda & Poonam have grown as advocates throughout their careers, among other topics.
Women & Hi Tech’s ClickSide Chats are monthly, virtual discussions amongst our members to share ideas and perspectives about the professional and personal challenges we are facing and serve to build new connections with fellow members.
Poonam Gill is a STEM education advocate and has spent more than 15 years working with non-profit organizations to improve engagement for youth in STEM. Poonam earned a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Education in Learning Design & Technology from Purdue University.
She works as an Instructional Designer at MISO where she uses learning and development best practices to help employees grow their technical and business acumen skills.
Poonam currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Girl Scouts of Central Indiana, Every Girl Can STEM, and the Board of Visitors for the new School of Engineering at Marian University. She also is a member of the K-12 Outreach Committee for Women & Hi Tech.
Linda Calvin is a 20-year veteran of the private IT sector with strengths in communication, law, digital and application development, and global tech leadership.
Linda is currently the Chief Impact Officer for Reboot Representation, an organization dedicated to doubling the number of Black, Latina and Native American (BLNA) women graduating with computing degrees by 2025.
She holds many board and volunteer positions including Executive Women’s Forum Director for Women & Hi Tech, volunteer Guardian ad Litem and board member for Kids’ Voice of Indiana, and the Indiana Technology and Innovation Association (ITIA).
Tori Harper-Mercado joined the Women & Hi-Tech organization in October 2022 and joined the tech industry just under two years ago. She has previous experience in civil engineering and sports & entertainment working in a variety of marketing roles. Currently, she works as an Account Executive for Onebridge, a local data and analytics consultancy, that specializes in decision intelligence and helping their customers become heroes in their own organizations.
Tori participates and involves herself in areas where she feels she can give back to her community such as coaching and mentoring athletes of her high school track and field team and being an active committee member for Rebuilding Together Indianapolis.
In her spare time, she is a new experience fanatic that thrives off of fun adventures, connectivity, and the love of animals (especially dogs).
The event is FREE and exclusive to Women & Hi Tech members! Space is extremely limited, and will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. Once registration is filled, no wait list will be initiated. Registration for ClickSide Chat is required in order to provide you with the final login instructions.
**By registering for this event, you acknowledge that you may be photographed, videotaped, and/or audio-taped during the course of this event and hereby give permission for your image, and/or voice to be used in education, training, promotion, advertisement, and/or trade and communications media by Women & Hi Tech in any and all media outlets throughout the world, without restriction as to frequency or duration of usage.**
***PLEASE NOTE: W & HT event registration is non-transferable. ***
