LEANNE PITTSFORD
Leanne Pittsford is the founder of Lesbians Who Tech, a global community of queer women in technology and their friends. “I started Lesbians Who Tech for two reasons,” she says. “I was tired of going to LGBTQ and tech events that had no queer women representation, and I believed that we had to rethink the way we provided value to queer women if we wanted them to engage in either community.” Lesbians Who Tech features regular happy hours, incredible summits and will be launching a mentoring program called Bring a Lesbian to Work Day. (Upcoming summits include Berlin on August 29 and in New York on October 2.) The summit positions itself as a fun, educational and inspiring event, with the focus on non-painful networking, “badass speakers” and parties. “Lesbians Who Tech has made thousands of connections and increased the visibility of queer women in technology, and making those incredible stories and people in our community more visible is one of the most important and rewarding parts of what I do. Megan Smith, the chief technology officer of the United States, is just one example of visibility in our community, but there are hundreds more we´ve been able to put on a stage in front of thousands of people. And seeing the impact from those stories and those connections is definitely the [thing] that keeps me focused and moving forward.” -GH
What Do You Think?