#GirlsTakeover – Inspiring Future Women Leaders in Tech

Creating and maintaining an inclusive environment where everyone feels respected and heard is at the core of Smartly.io's culture. To help cultivate inclusive environments, one of Smartly.io's social responsibility commitments is to support women and girls.

In March, we celebrated International Women's Day and Women’s History Month, highlighting the contributions and achievements of women. At Smartly.io, we wanted to raise awareness of the importance of providing girls with equal opportunities to reduce the discrimination and prejudice girls and women continue to experience.

#GirlsTakeover leading roles of the business

Aiming to inspire and help advance the next generation of women in the workplace, we teamed up with Plan International in March 2022. We aim to create an environment free of workplace bias and develop opportunities for young female leaders to participate in decision-making. Therefore, we collaborated with Plan International's #GirlsTakeover campaign that brings global focus to women and girls' lack of representation in the global development agenda. As a result, we had two impressive youth leaders from Plan International's network stepping into leadership roles at Smartly.io during the campaign.

These young women stepped into leading roles in several ongoing initiatives at Smartly.io, including taking part as panelists in a discussion around leadership for our new team leads and giving them the stage to incorporate their ideas into a product design working session. We saw the world through the young leaders' eyes during the takeover days and were so glad to give these young female leaders a stage to make an impact.

Fatima and Izzi’s feedback speaks for themselves – the experience was mutual:

"The takeover at Smartly.io was incredibly insightful and dynamic. I was able to experience different roles in the ad tech industry and truly immerse myself in innovative thinking while sharing my views with the teams! I'm very grateful for this experience, as it enriched my professional development as a leader and marketer. Thank you to Smartly.io and Plan USA – I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate Women's History Month than by giving young women, like myself, the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive!" – Fatima

“Plan International’s #GirlsTakeOver of Smartly.io was an incredible learning experience. We were given the opportunity to speak to professionals at the top of their game across departments, gaining broad insight into the world of AdTech and leadership more generally. As I’m at the beginning of my career as a marketing manager for a London-based grassroots football charity, I am leaving this week with valuable insights in my industry, but more importantly, with greater confidence in my ability to lead. I feel proud to have been a part of the #GirlsTakeOver 2022, making space for more young female talent in the future!” – Izzi

Learning about opportunities for women in Tech

In Finland, only 28% of the workforce in the software industry is women (source). Mimmit koodaa (women code) community plays an essential role in attracting more women to the field to advance gender balance. Together with their partner companies, Mimmit koodaa helps women learn to code and find employment in the industry through low-threshold, free activities. The program is supported by the Finnish Software and E-business Association and companies within the industry.

By collaborating with Mimmit koodaa, we wanted to help their community increase gender equality in the Finnish software industry. One of the core initiatives of Mimmit koodaa is easily accessible coding workshops for women interested in coding. To support their mission, we hosted a webinar on the Basics of TypeScript as we see the knowledge of TypeScript as a competitive advantage in getting employed in software development.

To give women interested in working in IT a better understanding of the types of roles available in the field, we also did a takeover of Mimmit koodaa's Instagram account. We had Smartlies working in Product Development in different roles documenting a typical working day throughout the week. So the Mimmit koodaa community could get a glimpse into the day of a Product Designer, Data Analyst, Design Lead, Lead Engineer, and Support Solutions Engineer. Our female Smartlies did a great job telling us about their roles and responsibilities and engaging in dialogue with the community.

With Women & Girls as one of our social corporate responsibility focus areas, it was natural for us to take the opportunity in March to make sure we play our part in supporting a more equal world. This is just the beginning of a handful of exciting new initiatives we have coming up through 2022! Stay tuned for a virtual event we're hosting with Women Who Code Austin in May and another collaborative event with Mimmit koodaa coming in August.

Interested to hear how we're supporting other areas of Corporate Responsibility?

Here's a sneak peek! During April, rumor has it that we have Smartlies cleaning up our local communities on Earth Day. You can keep an eye out for our Instagram account @smartlyio to not miss the action!

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