How do we retain more women in STEM & Changing How an Enterprise Does Digital

The question remains: How do we change a systemic habit to help us attract and retain more women in STEM? - Doina Oncel, Founder of hEr VOLUTION

A combination of all of Doina's experiences led her to launch hEr VOLUTION, a nonprofit agency that serves underprivileged women and girls with innovative education and employment services along with mentorship support in the STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) sector.

One of the main focus that hEr VOLUTION has is to give access to talented girls and young women who's financial situation prevents them from taking part in innovative curriculum and engagement with mentors in the industry. hEr VOLUTION comes with the belief that, with our support, young women and girls of today will have the advantage in growing professionally while lowering the barriers in gender equality. Another focus is to make STEM fun, to offer equal opportunities to girls and women in this industry and to express that women are ready for challenging careers. That is demonstrated through innovative and alternative educational programs. Change is done not only through hands-on learning but also through professional mentorship opportunities starting with our partners and any other professionals in the field that are ready to give back and make a change.

Rebuilding TELUS.com (http://telus.com/) and Changing How a Large Enterprise Does Digital - Shawn Konopinsky, CEO Nascent

Description: Nascent created a start-up environment inside TELUS to completely rebuild the company’s digital products and web properties, including TELUS.com (http://telus.com/). This collaboration wasn’t just a redesign. With help from senior leadership and other amazing partners, we worked with TELUS through a transformation to adopt a lean, agile (and cost effective) approach to building digital things that customers have validated as the way to go.

Shawn Konopinsky is the CEO and cofounder of Nascent, a boutique digital design and software engineering agency. Shawn’s skills were honed as a Program Manager for Microsoft Office before founding Infusion's User Experience practice in 2006. Shawn has a BSc in Computer Science with a focus on Human/Computer Interaction from University of Toronto where he has served as an invited Lecturer, teaching a third-year course called “Computers and Society”.