Celebrating 500 Members! :)

It feels like just yesterday when we launched this brand new community on the Microsoft Tech Community platform. We’ve heard the tech industry’s cry for more global stages, platforms, communities and safe spaces to talk about all things diversity, and two months ago on 17 January 2018, the Diversity and Tech Community was born.  


 


DnT 500 members post!!.JPGCelebrating 500 Diversity and Tech members!


 


Since then, we’ve been on the road, traveling to Global Tech Summits all around the world to meet people of diverse backgrounds – men, women, people of color, LGBT, kids in STEM, people with special abilities – to understand you better, and discover YOUR amazing, unique stories. We’ve also launched the inaugural Community Mentors Program, where we help match people of diverse backgrounds who need help finding a technical mentor with experts worldwide to spur them on to pursue and excel in technical IT roles. In the recent Treehouse Mentoring Day, we’ve put both volunteer mentors and mentoring experts in a tiny room at the Microsoft Treehouse, and got them to really communicate and exchange best practices on mentoring others for success. 


 image14.jpegDeep-dive discussions on mentoring best practices @ the Treehouse Mentoring Day


 This community has been an amazing platform for us to showcase not only real-life struggles and hard-knock experiences, but also stories of valuable lessons and incredible personal growth that all of us as unique individuals have gone through in our lives. This serves as the safe space for many to be vulnerable, and share their inner thoughts about what scares them, what inspires them, and what gives them hope in their corner of the world. 


 capetownphoto.JPGDiversity and Tech panels at Tech Summits worldwide


 As we celebrate the richness of diversity in the people and stories on this community, we also discover the similarities that bind us – our common insecurities, our struggle with fighting Imposter Syndrome, our fears about feeling like frauds when we are called to dig in to tough situations or take on that deeply technical job that we didn’t feel like we really qualified for. 


 


This community is YOUR space to be yourself, for you to tell your one-of-a-kind story to the world, and also be that source of emotional support for someone else to say, “Hey, it’s OK. You’re not alone.” We are all in this together – collectively, we can make a great impact in changing attitudes in society.


 


image2.jpegVolunteer mentors from the Community Mentors Program 


Thank you for choosing to be on this journey with us. As we grow this community to the next 1,000 members and beyond, we challenge you to be bold, to speak up and to advocate for yourself and others in your community so that we can build a better, more inclusive world for all. 

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