WIC Million Dollar Partnership Challenge

Standing out in the $7 trillion cloud industry is no easy feat—in fact, 98% of women are unable to get access to corporate contracts and capital investments. 

That is why Women In Cloud is ecstatic to announce the Million Dollar Cloud Partnership 3-Day Challenge from June 22nd to June 25th, 2022. 

This challenge is designed to take women technology founders’ businesses to the next level and help them achieve the impact they have always dreamed of. 

Through a series of live webinars and editable workbooks, participants will become experts in strategic co-selling with cloud hyperscalers, develop a collaborative mindset that facilitates strong partnerships, gain access to new B2B SaaS investors, acquire skills in marketing and brand promotion, request warm introductions, and more! 

This challenge will cover a range of topics that promote professional and personal development:

  1. Collaborative Mindset
  2. Investor Access
  3. Co-Sell Solution Identification
  4. Brand Visibility

In addition, participants will meet and learn from industry leaders such as Chaitra Vedullapalli, Gillian Muessig, Rajeev Kapoor, Christine Puccio, Karen Fassio, and more!

Don’t miss out! Secure your ticket today! 

See the exciting schedule below:*

  1. Tuesday June 21st 11:00 am – 12:00 pm PT: Kickoff : Collaborative Mindset Through The Power of Trust (BONUS SESSION)
  2. Wednesday June 22nd 11:00 am – 12:00 pm PT: Access to Investor and Investments
  3. Thursday June 23rd 11:00 am – 12:00 pm PT: Cosell Solution Development with Hyperscalers
  4. Friday June 24th 11:00 am – 12:00 pm PT: Brand Visibility & GTM Plan

*Note: You are NOT required to attend every session. Ticket grants access to ALL sessions.

For more information on Women In Cloud’s 3-Day Million Dollar Cloud Partnership Challenge, click here

On April 22, the Women in Cloud community joined together as we hosted a special edition of #WICxFortune100 Lunch and Learn. Salesforce Ventures features “A Guide to Corporate Venture Investing: Learn the Ins and Outs from Salesforce Ventures.” 

salesforce lunch and learn

To begin the event, Erin Northern, Partnership Lead for Women in Cloud (WIC) set the stage to introduce WIC and Salesforce Ventures. Erin greeted the audience and encouraged an active chat within the attendees. Attendees came from 5+ countries around the globe, all with a goal to learn and be inspired by the event today. 

Watch the introduction here:

 

Next, Salesforce Ventures brought Enki Toto, Investor for Salesforce Impact Venture Fund to the stage for the Keynote: A Guide to Corporate Venture Investing. Enki gave an in-depth presentation on the basics of investing and how corporate venture capital is different. With insightful questions from the chat, Enki delivered a well rounded approach to the topic, breaking down ideas and methods to teach and engage the audience.

Enki focused on the following topics: 

  • Deal structures
  • How to prepare for your pitch
  • Due diligence, risks, and closing the deal
  • The return on investment

Enki is currently an investor on the Salesforce Ventures Impact Fund, Salesforce’s corporate venture capital fund that invests in cloud technology solutions with a demonstrable impact in Education and Workforce Development, Sustainability, DE&I, and the Social Sector. She’s been involved in the company’s investments in BlocPower, Circulor, Crehana, Ellevest. and Propel.

 

Watch Enki Toto here: https://youtu.be/0bpqONyLC54

With this special edition of the #WICxFortune100 Lunch and Learn featuring Salesforce Ventures, WIC captured a niche audience and brought important information to the stage. 

Useful Resources: 

  • If you missed this session, you can find the recordings here
  • Register for #WICxInspire on July 14 for an interactive virtual event 
  • Do you want infinite access to more career and professional development opportunities? You can get $1000 of value for just $249 with the Women In Cloud’s Annual Access Pass. Learn and connect with the tech industry’s top leaders through Signature Events and Warm Introductions, develop your leadership skills, reach your full potential, and more! 
  • Learn more about EmpowHERaccess Awards
  • WICxLEAD: Next-generation Corporate ESG Women’s Leadership Accelerator, designed to empower corporate women and entrepreneurs to ignite economic access. Learn more and apply to qualify.
  • Want to request a warm introduction with Cloud Leaders from the session? Click here to request warm introductions today.
  • Join the #WiCDigitalNetwork to connect with community members and stay up to date with latest news, opportunities, and initiatives 

 

WIC is excited to announce the launch of our 7th Cloud Accelerator Cohort, beginning virtually on May 26th, 2022. Our unique accelerator program enables female tech founders to leverage the power of partnering with hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, and IBM to become enterprise and Cosell ready. 

Women in Cloud has successfully graduated 70+ women-led companies over 6 previous cohorts with a global expansion including 9 countries around the world: United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, India, Kenya, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.

The WIC entrepreneur community asked and We ANSWERED! We’ve adjusted the program to be even better than before.

Now A 3-month immersive program with even MORE benefits, including a 3 year relationship with the Women in Cloud community. During this immersive 3-month program the Cloud Accelerator provides: access to industry leaders, structured training, office hours, industry events, self-learning content, and more, all via digital platforms making the Accelerator accessible to women-led businesses worldwide. Women in Cloud is excited to announce the following 9 companies that have been accepted in the WIC Cloud Accelerator 7.0 Cohort of their award-winning Cloud CoSell Accelerator:

This kickoff focused on helping founders develop their future vision and this experience was led by Patti Dobrowolski, 3 Times TEDx speaker and inspired the founders to design their co-sell plan.

Here is the output of what a vision of equitable equity and access looks like for women founders.

Going digital has let us expand our horizon and open this program to people from around the world rather than just a region. 

This year’s WiC Cloud Cosell Accelerator is more than just an effort to make economic contributions to the system by empowering entrepreneurs. It is about embracing the new normal and moving forward with a sense of community. It is about adopting self-empowerment and finding comfort in knowing where to turn for support with a community at your side. Most importantly, it is about collective growth and learning.

The Cloud Cosell Accelerator combines training, access to industry leaders, structured training and office hours, industry events, self-learning content, and more, all via digital platforms making the Accelerator accessible to women-led business worldwide. Women in Cloud is excited to announce the following companies as accepted in the 7.0 cohort of their award-winning Cloud Cosell Accelerator:

  • AffableBPM- SaaS based Fully Customizable Business Workflow Management to provide Automated Compliance checks, Paperless – end to end, Cut down manpower up to 65% and Cost savings up to 50% . It is quick and easy to install and adopt!

  • Liiingo– Liiingo’s platform enables businesses to effectively connect, engage, and their shared customers’ journey, so they can nurture and benefit from repeat business and referrals. Liiingo’s mobile engagement platform removes those barriers for customers with our patented language delivery solution, as well as providing an intuitive an engaging experience.

  • LockDocs: LockDocs is a Digital-identity-as-a-service platform for the financial services sector. We are transforming how financial institutions collect and manage and customer data by offering a frictionless customer experience and generating significant time and cost savings in the process.

  • MyExcelia: MyExcelia is an AI-powered voice-enabled pocket coach that records voice, translates to text, anonymizes input, and provides in-the moment communication improvement feedback to managers, coaches, leaders, and employees at all levels without further input or effort from the employee.

  • OfficeTroops: Offers a global technology supported service to help small and medium organizations source, manage and nurture their future talent. The fight for talent requires a concerted effort at career brand development, candidate engagement and technology in hiring. Large organizations have substantial budgets to do this. We bring that same caliber to small and mid size businesses (SMB) who might otherwise lose out in this fight. Our solution centers around a white labelled hiring platform combined with concierge level placement services. We augment SMB hiring teams from day one and give them hiring scale at an attractive price point.

  • Accelera : The Maestro Ecosystem is a complete, all-in-one digital transformation tool. We partner with various technologies in payments, finance, and customer service through the API management layer. We use a digital identifier in a multi-tenanted environment to segregate a client’s data, which is orchestrated, headlessly, and displayed on a webpage.

  • Sapta Inc: Sapta is a cloud-based enterprise value management software built to help organizations achieve sustainable accelerated growth eliminating management chaos. The integrated management platform helps enterprises build OKRs, fuel innovation, make faster business decisions, and create a seamless CX journey.

  • Viverie AI: Viverie AI is the vision and brain for various types of smart robots, cameras, and sensors. Through collaborative training, our AI can be your solution for your specific needs. 

  • iLEAP Group: A Cloud MSP Provider transforming HBCU ecosystem with Cloud Services with IP based solutions.

Do you want to participate in the WIC Cloud CoSell Accelerator but missed the deadline? Don’t worry you can apply to be a part of our next Cohort HERE that is expected to roll out in late September.  

If you think you’d like to apply for the Accelerator Program but not sure if your business is ready yet?

 

Join us for the #MillionDollarPartnershipChallenge June 21-24, designed to prepare women-led tech businesses for the next steps.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We invite you to apply. Click HERE to learn more: https://womenincloud.com/initiative-cloud-accelerator/

Women are the key drivers of the economy; by accessing the resources needed to launch and sustain businesses, Women in Cloud will address the economic inclusion to co-develop and co-market solutions by providing women the tools, knowledge, and networks they need to build a successful enterprise-ready cloud business.

On May 6, the Women in Cloud community joined together as we hosted a premier #WICxFortune100 Lunch and Learn with Microsoft. This series is a networking experience designed to open the doors for leading fortune companies and brands to connect with technology business builders. This intimate learning series offers a space to learn about how to do business with Microsoft, understand their company culture, and get access to decision makers & procurement officers. 

Fortune L&L Session Microsoft

To begin the event, Chaitra Vedullapalli, Co-Founder and President of Women in Cloud (WIC) set the stage delving into the impact of the partnership between Microsoft and WIC, focusing on important topics such as:

  • Driving an Inclusive Digital Economy by accelerating representation of 50% of population (women) that were left out in the $7 Trillion cloud opportunity
  • Cloud Skilling – Providing 1,500 cloud scholarship and First Cloud Center of Excellence
  • Inspire fortune brands and other companies to partner strategically to accelerate Corporate ESG efforts
  • Digital Co-Selling with Microsoft & access to Community PDM
  • Cloud Marketplace – Diversity Lens on The Marketplace
  • Voices for Innovation – Policy Advocacy

Watch Empowering Women in Tech keynote with Charlotte Yarkoni here:

Following Chaitra Vedullapalli’s Opening Remarks, an inspirational Keynote: Empowering Women in Tech was led by Charlotte Yarkoni, President, Commerce + Ecosystems at Microsoft.She shared the impactful statistics that less than 2% of software startups in the USA feature a woman founder, and the Covid-19 pandemic will increase the time it will take to close the digital gender gap by 36 years. As a strong advocate for girls, young women, and women to be in STEM, Charlotte explained how diverse companies generate more innovation and better financial results than non/less diverse organizations.

The attendee chat feed was filling fast as the community quickly resonated with Charlotte. 

These alarming statistics call for change, showing how important workplaces and allies are to creating economic access and opportunities for all. Charlotte showed us how Microsoft values creating a healthy ecosystem for employees, partners, and customers to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Microsoft is committed to creating a culture where diverse perspectives are invited, where inclusive behavior and authenticity are the norm, and everyone is empowered to bring their true self to work. Microsoft has implemented multiple programs to create access for women, such as a program supporting women founders in their end-to-end start-up journey, and a mentoring program to pair women employees at Microsoft with women founders. Through collective action, we can foster women’s talent in tech, which is a critical component to growing women’s presence in technology.

Watch the Inclusive Economic Opportunity Panel here:

Next, we excitedly introduced the Inclusive Economic Opportunity Panel: Talent, Business Development, and Supplier Diversity with moderator Diego Rejtman – GM, Developer Relations at Microsoft, Mazhar Mohammed – CVP, Partner & Seller Experience at Microsoft, Jaci Santos Shibao – Tech and Sales Strategy, GPS Sr Director; WAM ERG Co-Chair at Microsoft, and Shara Holliday – Sr Director, Procurement at Microsoft. 

 

The attendees were heavily engaged in the conversation via the chat, making this panel highly interactive for the audience. The panelists provided numerous words of wisdom to the audience regarding the Microsoft workforce, partnerships, customers, and resources for entrepreneurs to be positioned for supplier diversity opportunities —  giving the attendees a realistic look at how Microsoft values and celebrates a diverse ecosystem. 

A unique component of the #WICxFortune100 Lunch and Learn Series is the Cloud Solution Showcase, where we feature two entrepreneurs and their solutions for the marketplace. This month, Lucy Flores – Elyon International, and Natasha Tetruyeva – eKidz.eu were brought to the stage to bring awareness and education to their companies. 

Watch Elyon International Inc here: 

 

Watch eKidz.eu here: 

Closing out the session, but definitely a community favorite, was the Roundtable Advisor Experience where leaders in Microsoft met face to face (virtually) with attendees and discussed important topics: Leadership & careers, Changemaking for inclusive growth, Women thriving at work, Skilling opportunities, Supplier diversity, Marketplace engagement, and Hiring & culture.

Featuring Microsoft Roundtable Advisors: 

  • Diego Rejtman – GM, Developer Relations
  • Gena Goh – Channel Inclusion and Impact Strategy Lead, Global Partner Solutions
  • Jaci Santos Shibao – Tech and Sales Strategy, Sr Director, Global Partner Solutions; Women at Microsoft ERG Co-Chair, Microsoft
  • Debbie Uttecht – Partner Marketing Lead, Worldwide Learning
  • Joel Gillespie – Program Manager, Supplier Diversity
  • Madiha Khan – Engagement Lead, Commercial Marketplace Services
  • Michelle Shafer – Sr Talent Acquisition Manager, Talent Acquisition 

Watch the Introduction to the Roundtables and the event Closing Remarks to catch a glimpse of this experience.

As the highest registered and attended #WICxFortune100 Lunch and Learn in the series, this event impacted greatly the Women in Cloud community. With outstanding engagement on social media (Tracie Cobian) and in the event chat (Stacy Tatem), WIC encouraged this behavior with gift cards giveaways. 

Useful Resources: 

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