The empowerment of women and the need to provide equal opportunities are top of mind as we go into 2018. To that end, entrepreneurs Leonora Valvo and Marie-Claire Andrews have launched Women in Event Tech, a new movement supporting women who are trailblazing new products and services in event technology.

Womenineventtech.org is a centralized location for like-minded women to connect, share stories, and be inspired by each other. The site calls for participation and support to enable the founders to gauge interest in other products/services and assess the right times and locations to bring the community together face-to-face for meet-ups and a summit.

Valvo and Andrews are both pioneers in the event tech field. Valvo founded etouches, leads the Event Tech Tribe, and is the founder and CEO of Swoogo. Andrews is director of operations for the Event Tech Tribe, founder of virtual events business Virtual Events NZ and was previously CEO of ShowGizmo.

The movement was created to expand the presence and recognition of women working in event technology, a market which is currently under-represented. Andrews expressed concern about this lack of representation.

 “I scan the event tech landscape continuously as part of my role with the Event Tech Tribe - and it’s worrying to see how few women there are leading or developing either within established companies or the new innovations,” she said.

Andrews continued, “We want to reach women in all facets of event tech from engineers to entrepreneurs and from sales to support.”

The founders are working closely with the Association for Women in Events (AWE), of which Andrews is a board member. Founded in 2015, AWE is a membership-based organization that is designed to be a central inclusive place for all women within the events industry to find resources, mentorship, and career guidance/enhancement.

Valvo summed up the reasons why women should jump on the bandwagon: to pay it forward and help other women.

 “I truly believe every woman in our industry, as they climb higher in the ranks, should be looking about her to reach down and pull up the next wave of female leaders,” she said.