Author Archives: Rana Abdelhamid

Meet Julia Zhao, a developer and video game creator

Our Women Techmakers in 60 Seconds video series features women engineers at Google teaching us a new skill in just one minute. In our latest episode, Julia Zhao, a software engineer on the Google Analytics team who builds video games in her spare time, showed us how to make a video game in 60 seconds using Unity.

We spoke with Julia to learn more about how she became a developer, what she’s working on now and what her favorite Google products are.

How did you become a developer?

I learned how to code by playing the online game Neopets as a kid, where I experimented with adding music and changing the colors of my profile. I didn’t get into coding again until college, when I took a computer science (CS) course. The class was much cooler than my engineering major at the time, so I switched my major to CS.

When I graduated, I took a job in Washington, D.C. as an Android developer for a defense contractor. I was hardworking but had low self-esteem. In my next job, right before I came to Google, I had a really good manager who believed in me, gave me challenging projects and encouraged me to grow as a developer.

What projects are you working on right now that you’re most excited about?

I recently joined the Google Analytics team, which is the first team I’ve been on with a business focus. Before, I was coding features for users, like buttons and settings. Now, I'm working on features to help businesses see and understand all of their data analytics. It’s made me really interested in marketing and business strategy, and how people use Analytics to grow their businesses.

Julia smiles at the camera while sitting on concrete stairs, holding a cup and her laptop.

What inspired you to start creating video games, and what made you choose Unity as a platform?

I’ve always liked to play video games, so I decided to try building them. When I was first researching how to build a game, many links mentioned the benefits of Unity — like its active developer community and how easy it is to use. Their store also offers free and inexpensive assets, like characters and fonts, which is especially helpful for non-artists like me!

What are your favorite Google products, and why?

My favorite Google products are Android and Google Assistant (asking Google questions is very useful). I also really like the Pixel’s camera quality. And if I build my own website in the future, I would explore using Google Analytics to help me measure my content and grow my audience.

What inspired you to get involved in Women Techmakers?

I made a video for Women Techmakers about creating an Android app about two years ago, when I was thinking about creating YouTube videos during my downtime. I really enjoyed making that video and educating people, which led me to create more content for Women Techmakers. I’m looking forward to making even more videos with the team in 2022!

Julia sits on a metal bench with her dog, Keto. She is holding her laptop open and gesturing to the screen.

Learn how to make your own video game in 60 seconds using Unityin Julia’s Women Techmakers in 60 seconds episode.

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Highlights from Women’s Online Safety Week 2021

Turkish Googler Merve Isler leads Women Techmakers efforts in the Caucasus region and recently organized a week of events.

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Highlights from Women’s Online Safety Week 2021

In 2020, Google community manager Merve Isler, who lives in Turkey and leads Women Techmakers efforts in Turkey, Central Asia and the Caucasus region, organized the first-ever Women’s Online Safety Hackathon.

“It was the first online safety digital hackathon in the world and was a pilot for everyone,” she says. “We tried it, and it worked well, so we planned a second one, a new version that would be even more inclusive.”

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Women aren’t safe online. Merve Isler wants to change that

Googler Merve Isler brings online safety hackathon to Turkey.

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Isler and Women Techmakers ambassadors in Turkey met online almost every day for two months to plan the event.

“I met with UN Turkish activist Zeynep Dilruba Tasdemir right before starting the program planning, and she inspired me to connect the WTM ambassadors with the United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA),” says Isler.

That led to partnerships with three major nonprofit organizations: the Habitat Association, TurkishWIN and UNFPA Turkey, which provided speakers for the event, mentors for the ideathon and social media marketing support. UNFPA’s youngest ambassador, 19-year-old Selin Özünaldım, spoke at the event.

Twenty-three teams competed in the ideathon, including the jury special award winners, two 12-year-old students. “They were so passionate about solving this important issue,” says Isler.

One project to emerge from the ideathon was BlueX, which uses a text blocker integrated into browsers and social media to read incoming messages, detect harassing or violent language, and block the message.

The event also expanded to an entire week: Women’s Online Safety Week 2021 spanned 10 sessions, held online in Turkish. Attendees had the opportunity to participate in four webinars, two keynotes, four trainings and one ideathon, a hackathon in which teams of women created technical solutions to the problem of violence against women online. More than 2,000 people viewed the online webinars, taught by online security experts from organizations that conduct research on digital security. Facilitators from #IamRemarkable, a Google initiative that empowers women and other underrepresented groups to celebrate their success at work and beyond, also facilitated virtual workshops.

Amid the keynotes and tech talk, Isler says the event also served as a supportive place to share experiences of online harassment and abuse.

“We feel empowered to support each other, and if we see online violence, doxxing, stalking, we should speak up,” she says.

As a champion of developer communities in her professional role, Isler encourages others to find a community that feels like the right place for them.

“At the end of the event, I was doing a final speech, and I said that joining communities to share your experiences is critical, to highlight the issue and get support from each other,” she says. “Joining a community is for career development — and also to feel safe and thrive in technology.”

Tech Bytes: spotlighting Black women engineers at Google

Earlier this year, Google’s Women Techmakers launched “Tech Bytes,” a series featuring Black women engineers and developers at Google. Tech Bytes supports our broader effort to spotlight Black women in tech by sharing their technical expertise, and creating a space for Black women in the industry to connect.

For our latest episode of Tech Bytes, we sat down with Kendra Claiborne, an Application Engineer at YouTube, to learn more about her role and passion for technology.

Tell us about your path to joining the tech industry. Where were you before?

My journey into tech started when I was eight years old, building websites for fun and searching online to learn how the computer works. My passion for programming led me to pursue a degree in Computer Science at the University at Buffalo. During my undergraduate years, I took an internship at a startup that specialized in building custom applications on the Salesforce platform. I was very unfamiliar with Salesforce when I first started, but I was excited to learn something new. Since that internship, I’ve built both frontend (user-facing) and backend solutions on the Salesforce platform for customers in many different industries. Those opportunities led me to the YouTube Content Partnerships Systems team in 2020.

Tell us about your role on that team. What do you do day to day?

I’m an Application Engineer, and I’ve carried my past experience into this role by focusing on building frontend and backend solutions on the Salesforce platform. Each day is slightly different from the next. My team applies the agile methodology for software development, which means we deliver feature requests or fix bugs incrementally instead of all at once. We participate in two-week “sprints” to get these done most efficiently. Leading up to a sprint, I am laser focused on mapping out the design for a feature request, which involves a lot of research and collaboration with the team and project lead. Once we've defined our approach and the tasks required to accomplish it, we focus on building out the features. I’ll spend the next 5-8 days coding, testing and submitting my code for peer review — after which, it will get deployed to our staging environments. A staging environment is like a testing ground, where we can make sure our code is working as intended before we push it live. At the end of the sprint, if our deliverables have been approved for Quality Assurance (QA) — meaning they have reliable performance and functionality — they'll be released to production.

What was the most important class or training that you took? What was a key technical takeaway?

During my undergraduate studies, I took a Data Structures and Algorithms Design course. That class was instrumental in building my problem solving skills. It taught me how to more effectively organize, store, and solve problems based on inputs of data.

Tell us about your Tech Bytes episode. What message did you want to get across?

In my Tech Bytes episode, I discuss three different topics: communicating changes across separate systems through the Publisher-Subscriber Model; building modular, reusable code, which separates functionality into independent pieces of code; and the importance of Test Driven Development. I hope that viewers learn something new and get inspired to find out more about these subjects — and maybe even use them in a future project.

Check out Kendra’s Tech Bytes episode for more, and explore other interviews on our Tech Bytes YouTube channel. You can also learn more about our efforts to spotlight Black women in tech on the Google’s Women Techmakers website.

3 things we learned from the second season of ‘Founded’

Last year, Google’s  Women Techmakers launched “Founded,” a podcast celebrating the real, honest stories of women leaders in the tech industry and their journeys to entrepreneurship. Now, we’re back with a second season that will follow six women in tech with a common goal: to build a successful business. 

We’ll hear from women like Hana Hassan, who’s working to diversify tech companies’ hiring practices, and Laura Rodriguez O’Dwyer, CEO of a startup that’s demystifying certain parts of learning languages.

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    Cristina De La Peña is the o-founder of Synapbox, a content-testing platform using AI to help brands better understand consumer engagement towards advertisements. 

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    Shelly Bell is the founder of Black Girl Ventures Foundation, an organization transforming  entrepreneurship by reimagining the way Black and brown women founders access financial and social capital.

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    Laura Rodriguez O'Dwyer is the founder of Glot Learning!, an education startup that created an app to help people learn difficult aspects of foreign languages.

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    Yasmine El Baggari is the founder of Voyaj, a platform that connects people from around the globe for  meaningful, one-on-one exchanges to help foster understanding and peace. 

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    Sandeep Ahuja is the co-founder of cove.tool, an automated sustainability consultant for building performance modeling, 3D performance visualization and parametric optimization

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    Hana Hassan is the CEO of Blackmaple.io, a global talent marketplace dedicated to the diversification of hiring in the technology industry.

As the host of “Founded,” I’ve learned so much from these incredibly driven women. So to give you a sneak peek to the season, here are three lessons you’ll hear throughout the episodes: 

  1. Just start. In the interviews, you’ll hear that most of the founders we spoke to didn’t have the “perfect” financial or social circumstances to launch a tech startup. What they did have was  ambition and drive;  the moment they put their foot to the pedal, their ideas took off. Sometimes this take-off was very slow, and sometimes it was fast. What mattered is that they began their journeys and made their ideas a reality. 
  2. Be bold in your ask. You can’t build a company on your own. You’ll need a team, and you’ll probably need other people’s money. These people are investing in you and your vision. To get that investment, you have to make “the ask.” The initial ask might be challenging, but you need  to grow your resources and knowledge base if you want to build a company beyond one person and one idea. We heard from people who demonstrated how one relationship, one investor, one supporter could transform a startup’s direction. So never miss that opportunity! 
  3. Stay rooted in a clear sense of purpose. From ensuring financial stability to building and nurturing a team, founding and running a startup is hard work.  But a common thread between these founders was they always reminded themselves of why they started their businesses in the first place. What makes them get up in the morning is the same drive that helps them overcome obstacles. 

Season two of “Founded” is available now, and you can find it on Google Podcasts or wherever you listen.

Meet 3 women who found community in India’s tech scene

From left to right: Dhruva Shastri, Varsha Jaiswal and Supriya Shashivasan.

Based on research Women Techmakers conducted in 2018, women only make up 34 percent of all technology sector employees in India. Thankfully, there’s a rising leadership of Indian women in tech working to make this industry more inclusive and equitable. 

Many of them are a part of our Women Techmakers community, which is at the forefront of this change. I recently had the chance to talk to Dhruva Shastri, Varsha Jaiswal and Supriya Shashivasan, three Women Techmakers Ambassadors from India, about their experiences in tech, and why they’re so motivated to do this work.

How would you explain your job to someone who isn't in tech?

Dhruva:  I’m a Flutter developer with a background in UX Design, so I’d say I create experience and tools for people who use Android phones, and that I pay extra attention to the design so that it’s fun and easy to use.

Varsha:I’m a web developer, so I would say I talk to people about how they want to use technology so that I can create the places on the internet that serve them with the information or tools they’re looking for. 

Supriya: I’m a front-end developer who takes amazing mockups and designs of websites and apps and converts them to live code so everyone can use them. I’m also pursuing research in security. So I’d say I’m looking into how best we can safeguard our assets, data and online details from hackers.

What made you want to work in this field?

Varsha:Since an early age, I was  interested in  technology and wrote my first code in first grade. I’ve always been passionate about solving problems and building solutions.

Supriya: I’ve always been curious about the mechanics of how things work. I’ve also loved building things on my own since I was a child. In college, I fell in love with technology and discovering ways it could make life easier. Solving problems by building innovative solutions with nothing but a laptop!? It's amazing.

Tech is such an evolving industry, how do you keep your technology skills current? 

Dhruva:The industry is constantly evolving. The internet is the easiest and best resource to learn new things and stay updated on my field. I learn from people and organizations I follow on Twitter, by reading blogs and newsletters and occasionally visiting forums like Stackoverflow, Quora, Reddit and so on. I also attend offline (and more recently due to the pandemic, online) meetups, take online courses, do pair-programming, create sample projects and talk with colleagues. 

Supriya:I spend a few hours a day studying and reading different blogs and forums. I’m also part of online and offline communities like Google Developer Groups, Hashnode, Quora and Stackoverflow where I can connect with other people who work in my field and we can talk, help, network and update each other. Attending online workshops, hackathons and meetups is also helpful.

Why is being part of the Women Techmakers community important to you?

Dhruva: This community provides a sense of belonging, safety and security. I remember  when I  joined the Google Developer Group here in Ahmedabad back in 2013, I was too shy to talk to anyone. And now I feel so much more confident. GDG and Women Techmakers brought out this transformation in me by providing a platform, resources, opportunities and connection. This inclusive space gives you the freedom to share your struggles, celebrate your achievements and build your support system. Now it gives me immense happiness to touch  the lives of women and non-binary groups and be a part of helping them find success. 

Supriya: I used to be so scared of speaking in front of more than five people. I would stutter and gasp for huge breaths of air. That all changed when I got involved with Women Techmakers. During Google Developer Days in 2019, in the community lounge, I watched women speak about the importance of community and how it helped them. I found myself raising my hand to share my experience, but I could barely manage to speak three sentences. Next thing I know I heard claps, and I saw smiles all around. I didn't feel scared anymore. I went on to become an ambassador for my own community.

What is one piece of advice you have for a woman interested in getting into tech?

Dhruva:Success always lies on the other side of our comfort zone. So when you don’t know how to do something, say yes. Take risks, learn something new, because the best way to get out of mediocrity is to keep shooting for excellence.

Varsha:Don’t hesitate, try and keep trying. Ask questions, explore more and trust yourself. And you’re not alone — we’re all together in this, helping each other grow and create a better future.

Supriya:Be fearless, bold, follow your dreams and speak your mind. Turn things to your advantage by forcing your way through any obstacles in your path.


Women aren’t safe online. Merve Isler wants to change that

In February, Şeyma Yıldız was killed by her own father in Ankara, Turkey because she had posted what he thought were “inappropriate images” online. Sadly, the 16-year-old’s story is not an outlier: According to the country’s police data, 81 women were killed in domestic violence incidents this past May. 

Googler Merve Isler lives in Turkey and leads Google’s Women Techmakers efforts in the region. And it’s stories like Şeyma’s that remind her why she does this work. “Yes, the Women Techmakers program aims to increase the visibility of women in the tech industry, but it’s also about ensuring their security online.” It’s incredibly important for women in her country—and around the world—to know how to protect themselves from violence, online and off.  

In the midst of a time when women are reckoning with their safety, Merve led WTM ambassadors in Turkey to organize the Women’s Online Safety Hackathon, held virtually this past August. I recently sat down with her to hear about her experience organizing the event, and to learn more about this cause. 

What was your favorite moment from the event?

I was so impressed by the CyberGuard project presentation. CyberGuard uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to detect cyber harassment by analyzing  messages sent to the user. The team trained an artificial intelligence model using Twitter data. Then, the system could run on someone’s phone and detect if they received harassing text messages. The algorithm could detect an attack on a person at a rate of 85 percent. It also directs people using it to appropriate legal solutions and psychological support if they are being harassed. 

Were there any big learning experiences for you?

Perhaps the biggest takeaway for me was learning to never stay silent in these situations. It’s important to reflect on and report what’s happening so that we can defend ourselves. 

There are a lot of legal and psychological aspects that we need to learn and be aware of in order to prevent violence against women. While we react against violence against women, we need to be careful not to harm the people we try to support psychologically. Again, it's so important to never be silent about cyber attacks or situations where we’re being bullied. Being aware of how violence manifests in these moments, gathering facts and defending our rights through reporting is important. 

What are some tips you learned about keeping yourself safe online during the event? What do you hope others learn from this work?

I definitely learned a few things, and these are things that can help keep anyone safe. For starters, take control of what people can see about you online. Use your social media accounts' privacy tools to limit who can see your posts, and even how people can search for you. If you need to, make all of your photos and posts private.

Also, try not to use location tags on your posts, and don’t allow your social media apps to have access to your location data.

And always report and block harassers, or place people on restricted lists or use customized groups to only share with people you know. This is especially useful if you want to avoid confrontation.

How can people get involved with this cause?

The Purple Roof Women's Shelter Organization is another great resource that offers legal advice, medical support and counseling to women dealing with domestic violence, and to survivors of sex trafficking. In Turkey, We Will Stop Femicide was founded by the families of murdered women and it provides legal assistance to women in danger, fights cases on behalf of women who have been killed, educates Turkish women about their rights and campaigns for the implementation of the Istanbul Convention. And of course, anyone can sign up for the Women Safety Training events in their region.

CEO Hana Hassan refuses to be ignored

Hana Hassan Women Techmakers

If you’re friends with Hana Hassan, you might know her by another name: Dope’rah (yes, it’s a combination of “dope” and “Oprah”). She was given the nickname because, as she puts it, she does her best to make sure “people feel seen and heard.” One way she does that is through her role as an ambassador for Women Techmakers, a Google group committed to providing resources, visibility and community to women in tech, in her town of Waterloo, Canada. “I’m focused on enabling diversity, inclusion and belonging.”

Hana is also the founder of Blackmaple.io. Blackmaple.io helps people gain access to equitable employment and networking opportunities, as well as supports tech companies that want to diversify their hiring and develop inclusive frameworks. 

I recently had the chance to talk to Hana about this work, and why she feels it’s important to bridge the tech industry’s gender gap.

What impact has Women Techmakers had on you?

Seeing the various ways other Ambassadors around the world are tackling equality in tech has equipped me with so much insight and knowledge. It’s also provided me with a community of women in Waterloo that’s helped me navigate the tech scene here.

Kitchener-Waterloo is Canada’s top startup ecosystem, and home to Google Canada. Running a Women Techmakers chapter here allows us to provide visibility, community and resources for women in technology here. We want to make sure there’s gender equity in this booming tech ecosystem by supporting and celebrating the diverse women-identified techmakers here. 

What problem are you hoping to solve with Blackmaple.io?

I founded Blackmaple.io five years ago to support tech companies in diversifying their talent pipeline and give them resources for becoming more inclusive. As a two-sided marketplace—meaning that our platform is for companies hiring as well as people looking for jobs—our talent platform helps people gain access to equitable employment opportunities and community, as well as address many challenges of diversity in tech. 

Right now, our talent platform, which is available to those looking for work, is in closed beta. But the goal is to  streamline the recruitment process and remove some of the barriers of entry to employment. 

I also want to help tech companies gain competitive advantages through their workforce by understanding the value of employees as people first. With a diversity lens, I want to help pair the best tech companies with the most talented people across the globe.

What career obstacles did you have to overcome?

There’s a  Nelson Mandela quote, "lead from the back and let others believe they are in front," that resonated with me when I founded Blackmaple.io. I was often referred to as a "CEO of one," which was dismissive, and to which I always responded, "but a champion of many."

Because I am one of the few women of color in the space, I often encounter and have had to overcome assumptions about me. People are surprised when they learn about my ability to build and solve things, the positions I hold, the spaces I take up and the people in my network. 

What advice do you have for other women who want to start tech companies? 

Trust your abilities, find your community and don’t give up, because what is meant for you will come to you.

What do you think are the barriers that exist in tech for women of color?

Access to resources and opportunities is definitely an issue, specifically for women of color. 

These barriers persist because there’s a lack of representation in leadership. You can only solve for what you know so having a diverse leadership team is key. 

Google's Black Founders fund is an example of moving in the right direction, especially given its global reach and impact. There’s also the Generation Google Scholarship, Google Lime Scholarship and Women Techmakers Scholars programs that drive equitable educational opportunities for underrepresented groups by removing some financial burdens. These are all opportunities I uplift so other underrepresented groups may learn more about them and apply.

What else would you like to share about being a woman in tech?

In Somali, we say: “Buundada waxaa la hagaajiyaa oo keliya kadib marka qof ku dhaco biyaha,” which means “the bridge is repaired only after someone falls into the water.”

2020 has been a year of firsts and “yet agains,” sadly. As a Black woman in tech, I’m expected to be the subject matter expert, I’m expected to be co-signed, I’m expected to justify the space I take up, I’m expected to explain myself, I’m expected to prove myself. 

I build, drive and make change as well as celebrate all humans, everyday, in an industry not designed for us, but rather that’s adjusting to us.

Thankfully, though, I am one of many—and the industry is starting to notice. 

How Nikiya Simpson brought meaning to her work

In 2009, Nikiya Simpson was dealing with burnout. She’d been working in data processing at a tech company for six years but recently found herself wanting “something more meaningful.” “I felt like the long nights and weekends, the overtime and stress, didn’t contribute to making anyone’s life better,” Nikiya says. “Especially my own.” 

Nikiya decided to leave her job in tech and pivot toward a career in academic research, beginning work at the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences College of Public Health. “I built a web-based application that disseminated county-level health data for the state of Arkansas,” she says. That led to more work creating systems for public health and institutional research. Today, she still supports that very first project, as well as works on creating new web and mobile applications focused on digital health and access for people in underserved areas. 

Nikiya is also a Women Techmakers Ambassador in her town of Little Rock, Arkansas. Women Techmakers is a Google-created community that works to promote the visibility and opportunities for women in tech. I recently caught up with Nikiya to learn more about her career in making public-facing tech applications, as well as how Women Techmakers has helped her find community. 


What do you get out of the Women Techmakers community?

I feel so empowered, included and supported as part of Women Techmakers. Everyone deserves to be valued and heard and to have access to opportunities that help us grow as developers or any industry. The group gives us amazing tools to be able to uplift women and support them in their careers. There’s something about being part of a community that helps you when you feel like giving up; that encourages you to keep going.

Community organizing takes a lot of effort. It means reaching out to people who tell you “no” sometimes. Starting a community like this is an incredible experience in teaching, leadership, perseverance and organization. I learn a lot. Not just about tech, but also about people and how to figure out what the community needs. 

What inspired you to enter the public health space?

I want to be a technologist for social good. I get to work with students, epidemiologists, data scientists, researchers and clinicians with different areas of expertise and different areas of research and be a part of their amazing work. I believe the pandemic has shown us the importance of looking out for others. I’m hopeful that by combining my love for education, science and technology, I can be a part of making our community better.

What is the tech industry in Little Rock like?

There’s a lot of opportunity for tech here, although many may not realize this at first. Major employers like Walmart, Sam's Club and Tyson Foods are located here. There’s also a small tech community in the central area around Little Rock, as well as a few startups.

There are a lot of misconceptions about the tech industry. What do you wish more people knew?

Sometimes when we think about tech, we think about “big tech.” I’m challenging myself and others to think about how we can use tech in traditionally non-tech spaces. I ask myself, how can we use tech to improve education, fair housing, healthcare? To reduce poverty, prejudice and racial injustice? 

Do you have any advice for other women in tech?

As a woman, it has been a lot to juggle a career, raise a family, pursue more education and take care of myself. My call to action is to show yourself some grace. Be kind to yourself, too. There are days when it’s not all going to get done. You will probably drop a ball or two. It’s OK. 


How Women Techmakers India reimagined their IWD event

When the Women Techmakers International Women’s Day event in India was canceled due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Program Manager Lakshya Sivaramakrishnan knew she had to find another way to bring the group together. Originally scheduled for March 21, the event was supposed to host panels, tech trainings, networking events and inspiring keynotes for hundreds of women developers from across India, as well as honor women in tech. “Initially, I was disheartened when the International Women's Day celebrations were called off,” Lakshya says. 


In part, that’s because she knows how important moments of representation are for these women. In India, women only make up 34 percent of all tech employees (based on research Women Techmakers conducted in 2018).  “While we took time to settle into the new mode of life 'online,' it was important to celebrate the super-women in our lives,” Lakshya says. The group decided to host the event online, scaling it  into a worldwide gathering. In just 20 days, around 5,000 women from across 76 countries, along with 40 speakers, registered and eventually joined the summit. The event lasted four days and offered four tracks (Leadership, Machine Learning & Cloud, Design & Entrepreneurship, Android & Web); pre-scheduled sessions pulled in 10K views, and live streams accumulated 6.4K views.  “It was so great to turn things around and celebrate the event with a global audience. And it was incredible to see our local Ambassadors pull this off.”


I talked to Lakshya to get her thoughts on reorganizing a massive, IWD event into an even bigger, online-only one. Here are five things she learned, alongside  her team of Women Techmakers local Ambassadors, while bringing this event to life.


Listen to your community.

Coming together to create a unified women in tech online summit in India was a result of one of the monthly community chats we have as a team. From ideating between smaller, chapter events to regional ones, the conversation snowballed into a country-wide event and eventually became global with registrations pouring in from 76 countries. 


Create collaborative systems

This event brought us all together to create something that was unheard of! We’d never hosted something with multiple tracks like this online before. We used Google Docs to collaborate and  ensure that our discussions were all in one place for anyone to add their contributions. A few of the collages and videos were produced in under  two hours, which speaks volumes to the love and attachment  the Ambassadors have for their communities and exemplifies their leadership capabilities. 


Play to your team's strengths.

The organizing team was one of the most diverse I have seen: We had passionate, young leaders with varied cultural backgrounds, technical expertise and creative minds. Smaller teams were formed and owners were identified for designing and maintaining the website, creating posters and interactive filters for attendees, engaging with participants through social media and  figuring out the technical infrastructure needed to host 22+ sessions over 12 hours in an online medium despite flaky internet, bad weather and frequent power cuts. 


Community is key.

The highlight of the summit was that almost all speakers were part of the Women Techmakers community. This ensured visibility to our community champions, giving them a great platform to showcase their passion in tech, design and leadership.  One of the most engaging moments throughout the four days were the 15-minute ice breaker sessions. The speakers tried to engage with the audience even in the online medium by asking and taking questions from  through live chats, as well.   


Celebrate and amplify your success.

I truly believe that a  leader is only as good as their team. My goal was to ensure they brought out the best in themselves while working on what they’re most passionate about. The experience of working with them so  closely, mentoring them and learning along with them as we figured out the unknowns was incredibly gratifying. After each day of the event, we would have a small after party to bask in the day’s success and pep each other up for the next day.


One founder’s mission to make healthcare more accessible

In 2018, women received only 2.2 percent of all venture capital funding. Women Techmakers, Google’s program to build visibility, community and resources for women in technology, is committed to changing this narrative. That’s why we launched Founded, a web series that shares the stories of women founders who are using tech to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges. To highlight the stories of four women of color tech entrepreneurs, for our first season we’re taking our viewers to Atlanta, home of one of the largest technology hubs in the U.S. 

In our latest episode, we interviewed Chrissa McFarlane who is the Founder and CEO of the blockchain startup Patientory (which is also helping distribute diagnostic kits and medical equipment during the COVID-19 crisis). She first learned about bitcoin in 2010, started working on broader blockchain solutions in 2015 and later published her book, "Future Women: Minority Female Entrepreneurship and the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the Era of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency."

Tell me about the moment when you first came up with the idea for Patientory. 

I was working with a telemedicine company and experienced first hand the difficulty patients have obtaining access to their medical information. I was also actively researching Bitcoin and Blockchain at the time and made a connection between the two industries. 

What was your vision for healthcare? What problem are you hoping to solve?

For over a decade, the main problem in the healthcare industry is  the topic of interoperability. The ability to access health information securely and easily across multiple providers has been a challenge. I recently wrote about this for the Electronic Health Reporter. 

Where do you see Patientory going within the next five years? 

Looking past our current pandemic, I see Patientory providing the capability to keep large populations of people around the world healthy. This year proved that we need access to digital health solutions more than ever. Telemedicine usage rose over 70 percent for certain apps. Being able to treat patients is not going to stop with an office visit, but should be an ongoing engagement that can be facilitated by technology. 

As a fellow New Yorker, I’m curious about your upbringing in the Bronx. How did it shape your vision for your work?

Growing up in the Bronx, I was exposed to various cultures and many different people from different socioeconomic backgrounds. During my first internship at the New York City Human Resource Administration/Department of Social Services, I met with hundreds of families across the city. This opened me up to  discrepancies that existed, especially as it related to healthcare; it helped to shape the mission behind Patientory in serving all people regardless of class or race.  

What are some of the first steps you took when starting your company?

I found advisors and mentors who would help me for the long-term. One of the most important factors of running a business is having strong relationships. 

 Two years ago, you made headlines after securing $7.2 million in funding in two days. How were you able to raise so much so fast?

Being a pioneer in the space, it was difficult to secure the first round of institutional funding. So we decided to create a cryptocurrency, called PTOY, through our Foundation. More than 1,000 people all over the world purchased the cryptocurrency, which secured over $7 million in funding for Patientory. It also provided grants to support early stage companies building blockchain healthcare solutions, which later translated into interest and continued support for Patientory’s initial capital raise. 

What advice do you have for other women interested in starting their own technology companies? 

Connect with an ecosystem, whether it’s an accelerator or incubator, and never stop talking to customers! I recently wrote a book about women entering the modern entrepreneurial world, and I talk about the 10 important mindsets you should have when you’re starting a business—for example, persistence and coachabilty.