TechWomen Wraps Professional Mentoring Program With Hillary Clinton Address

Frank Gruber July 7, 2011 Tweet

TechWomen is a professional mentorship and exchange program enabling women in the field of technology from the Middle East and North Africa to reach their full potential. The pilot program kicked off in April and offered 37 women selected from the Middle East and North Africa a chance to gain valuable mentorship experience by pairing them up with mentors from various companies in Silicon Valley. The program concluded yesterday with a special address by Hillary Clinton.

During the address, Hillary Clinton shared this perspective:

“Now, being a woman in the field of technology is not always easy. Being a woman in any field is not always easy – but there are so many opportunities in technology that we just have to forge ahead, and we’re doing so around the world because we want to make sure that all the tools that technology has made available are just as open to women as they are to men. And I also believe that innovation thrives on good ideas, and women have a lot of good ideas. And we don’t want those ideas to just die.”

The Secretary of State went on to announce a new program called TechGirls which will aim to do a similar function as an educational initiative for girls from Muslim countries interested in technology.

I was able to attend the luncheon in the Benjamin Franklin Room of the U.S. State Department where I met entrepreneurs from Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Algeria among others. Before heading on the next event, the White House Twitter Town Hall, I snapped a few photos from my seat at the far end of the room. Watch Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s TechWomen Luncheon speech in the video (below).