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WICxHelloAlice Launched Cloud Guides To Successfully Develop your As-A-Service Business

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The tech industry is full of possibilities. Especially nowadays that everything is migrating to the cloud. The pandemic caused a “digital transformation” revolution, and many companies had to think out of the box and develop new ways to keep functioning.

Microsoft, for example, experienced in two months the growth they expected to happen in two years. 

The truth is that cloud computing will keep growing fast in the upcoming years. And with that growth, the market size will also increase and get bigger.

Even today, cloud computing is an excellent opportunity (and tool) to create a business. The number of “as-a-service” businesses such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) is increasing day after day.

At Women In Cloud, we’d love to invite you to access the free Cloud Solution Building Suite in partnership with HelloAlice.

HelloAlice’s mission is to ensure every entrepreneur in the New Majority has what they need to launch and grow their own small business adventure.

It contains a series of how-to guides to guide you through every step of bringing your cloud-based idea to life. It’s a great tool to get solid insight from the industry’s experts and tips and tricks to make your journey much easier.

Take a look at what you’ll learn from the Cloud Solutions Building Suite:

For more information, please visit the Cloud Solutions Building Suite. 

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Top 10 Most Successful Women in Cloud Entrepreneurs 2021 is featured and celebrated by Insight Magazine

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Drum Roll! What a fantastic recognition of contributions made by Women In Cloud Entrepreneur’s.

‘1$ Billion in Economic Access by 2030’; that is the audacious goal Women in Cloud is in pursuit of. With the Women in Cloud Accelerator, $80 Million has already been generated towards that goal which aims to contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The Women in Cloud Microsoft Cloud Accelerator has had an immense impact in the technology industry. Over the last three years, we have had five cohorts, with over 55 entrepreneurs who have contributed to building an inclusive economy.  Women In Cloud’s Microsoft Cloud Accelerator is an immersive 6-month program to assist women-led tech companies to co-build, co-market, and co-sell with Microsoft and their distribution channels. This program is designed to help you win enterprise opportunities, get access to Azure credits, an advisor community, and a global stage to showcase your business.

The Insight Success Magazine has recognized the Women in Cloud Accelerator and the entrepreneurs who graduated from the Accelerator and went ahead to make an impact in society. The “Top 10 Most Successful Women in Cloud Entrepreneurs” Edition honors 10 women entrepreneurs from the technology industry who are shaping the future of the industry with their unique solutions.

Checkout the Top 10 Most Successful Women in Cloud Entrepreneurs 2021 featured on Insight Success magazine.


Women In Cloud Entrepreneurs in Cloud Computing Market.

We at Women in Cloud are excited to share this news and are proud to announce the following Top 10 Most Successful Women in Cloud Entrepreneurs; 

A seasoned entrepreneur who has founded four successful companies in the Home Improvement and Retail industry, and is a pioneer of leveraging technology to optimize business processes and strategies to accelerate growth. Kristen is a leader within the women in the technology community, as a board member for The Beyond Project, and advisor to Women In Cloud.

Cathy Light is a serial entrepreneur and organizational consultant who has helped countless global corporate clients achieve business results by transforming workplace culture and building teams that thrive. Her most recent venture, Liderança Group, introduced a unique, metrics-driven roadmap for driving Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the workplace, helping leaders identify opportunities for improvement, elevate conversations around diversity and inspire change.

With over 28+ years of worldwide IT, telecommunications, food and agricultural, and supply chain experience. From setting up production lines across the world for telecommunications to sourcing ingredients from the Americas to Asian countries. Traveling while delivering projects beneficial for the supplier and customers in over 4 continents, Martha dealt with both small and industrial size stakeholders or suppliers, government entities, and sophisticated buyers.

Allie’s passion for talent management has spanned her twenty-year career. Although her career started with nationwide companies, Allie’s recent focus is helping small business owners master their talent management. She has experience in all things human resources related for companies from one employee to 80,000 employees. Allie is a Chartered Professional in Human Resources (CPHR) with CPHR Alberta and a Registered Professional Recruiter (RPR) with the Institute of Professional Management.

Gail Mercer-MacKay is the proud founder and Chief Storyteller at Mercer-MacKay Digital Storytelling, an organization focused on creating amazing content and closed-loop marketing campaigns for technology firms. With double-digit growth year-over-year, the Mercer-MacKay client list includes many of the world’s leading technology organizations.

A renowned expert in her field, Geneviève Desautels, MBA, CRHA, MCC worked for 16 years in human resources in SMEs and large private and public companies. In 2010, she left Hydro-Québec to start her own professional practice which would focus mainly on the development of authentic and conscious leadership skills and abilities.

Kiyeon Nam is an award-winning inventor, fashion designer, and the Chief Executive Officer of B’ZT® (Beacon Zone Technology) and S’HUG (Sweater Hug).  B’ZT is the world’s first Smart Clothing pre-embedded with a machine washable smart chipset, which is created to prevent vulnerable individuals from going missing.

Nehal Mehta is an artist, mathematician, statistician, tech engineer, and cyber solutions inventor helping the world realize digital transformation dream through her efforts in cybersecurity, social and cultural involvement, and giving back to the community through her leadership efforts. She works with SMBs and Enterprises, helps them upgrade their cyber readiness, and provides usable security solutions through her user-centric cybersecurity research and innovations.

Donna Conroy, MS is an accomplished founder and CEO with extensive scientific experience including clinical microbiology and pharmaceutical sales and marketing. While in the corporate environment, she launched three drugs into the marketplace with great success. Throughout her career, Donna has focused on two passions: translating complicated science to understandable and usable insights and building work environments that support women - especially working mothers, a mission close to her heart.

Sarah Haggard is a proven business leader who has led multiple start-up initiatives within her decade-long career in product marketing at Microsoft, raising $40M to scale her last business. Expert in P&L management, enterprise software, and GTM strategy, Sarah’s tenacity and drive for results led to her being widely recognized as a turnaround expert and new business incubator.

We congratulate the entrepreneurs for their continued effort to build an inclusive technology industry and paving a path for the future generation of women to make their mark in technology. 

Check out their solutions in the Women In Cloud Marketplace.

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Women in Cloud Announces the #EmpowHERAccess Inaugural Awards: Nominate Today!

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Today, Women in Cloud is thrilled to announce the first-ever #EmpowHERAccess Awards, a unique opportunity for entrepreneurs to recognize those who have facilitated their access and ensured business stability throughout the pandemic.

Women in Cloud (WIC) partners with M12 – Microsoft’s Venture Capital Fund to award those who have created access for women in tech to support their stability and recovery from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

#empowHERaccess is an annual digital advocacy campaign by Women in Cloud to generate greater economic access for women in technology. Launched in 2020, the campaign reached over 600K women all! This year, as part of the #empowHERaccess campaign, we at Women in Cloud invite you to join us in acknowledging and celebrating the many stories of pivot and perseverance during the global pandemic. The application ends on June 30, 2021. So start your nominations today!

Women in Cloud has created eight awards to recognize and commemorate these vital members of our community: 

  1. Digital Transformation Project of the Year Award: This award celebrates excellence in digital transformation through the cloud and AI technologies. This award is sponsored by Microsoft Corporation. 
  2. Cloud Solution of the Year Award: This award sponsored by Insight, celebrates the cloud solution that most successfully innovates through the use of cutting-edge cloud and AI technologies as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. 
  3. Supplier of the Year Award: This award celebrates companies who have managed to be accessible to female entrepreneurs during the recent epidemic and have increased their supplier ecosystem to accommodate their diverse needs.  
  4. Advisor of the Year Award: This award celebrates the advisors and mentors who have continued to support women entrepreneurs during the COVID-19 pandemic by unlocking their rolodex, volunteering their time, and sharing their knowledge. 
  5. Investor of the Year Award: This award celebrates investors who continued to provide economic access to women entrepreneurs during the pandemic by investing $1M+ into women-owned or led technology businesses. 
  6. Innovative Partnership of the Year Award: Sponsored by Accenture, this award celebrates companies that have partnered with women technology entrepreneurs to co-sell their solutions into the enterprise ecosystem. 
  7. Cloud Technology Deal of the Year Award: Our Cloud Technology Deal of the Year will be notable for creating new partnerships, coalescing resources, or injecting funds into innovative cloud businesses. This award is sponsored by Meylah Corporation. 
  8. Women in Technology Outstanding Leadership Award: The award recognizes outstanding contributions to the cloud industry by an individual. Our Outstanding Leader will be an industry leader whose creativity, passion, and innovation are driving the space forward—someone who embodies cloud excellence. M12 – Microsoft’s Venture Fund sponsored this award. 

We welcome you to nominate organizations, suppliers, advisors, investors, and women technology leaders and help us recognize powerful force contributing to your success in the technology industry. Those chosen will be honored at an Award Ceremony on July 16th during the WiCxInspire event. 
Important:

1. Organizations and initiatives can nominate themselves!

2. Nominations are open until 30-Jun-21. Learn more!

3. This year’s award ceremony will be on July16th, 2021 during the WiCxInspire Event

For information on the #EmpowHERAccess Inaugural Awards, click here. 

The countdown begins! 

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Three Ways To Engage with Fortune 1000 Companies to Create Billion Dollar Economic Impact. Join Us!

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We are so excited to announce the launch of #empowHERaccess campaign this month.

#empowHERaccess is an annual digital advocacy campaign by Women in Cloud to generate greater economic access for women in technology. The inaugural 2020 campaign focused on the disruptions women in technology founders were facing, and anticipating, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, while WIC’s 2020 programming aimed to offer the access and opportunities women technology professionals need for recovery and continued success.

The 2021 #empowHERaccess campaign will bring together a number of facets to better understand the Global Crisis the pandemic has created for women entrepreneurs, and celebrate the many stories of pivots and perseverance.

As we were shaping the narrative, the community and Fortune companies wanted us to provide solutions to involve women tech founders as part of the digital transformation roadmap. Based on the feedback, I brainstormed the Forbes article to highlight tangible practices that can be implemented now to double the supplier diversity to create billions of dollars in economic impact using the collective power of Fortune 1000 companies.

So, What can Fortune 1000 companies do?

Systematic change requires collective action by organizations large enough to influence and maintain change. Some groundbreaking ideas to doubling the supplier diversity in Fortune 1000 companies for digital transformation could be:

  1. Strategic digital transformation planning with diverse suppliers. Digital transformation is shifting the competitive landscape for many organizations. As you seek to partner with new partners, it is important to look for diverse suppliers who are willing to work with you on the journey while you extend your talent workforce.
  2. Policy Refinement. Research conducted by the Harvard Business Review claims that 52% of women in STEM careers will eventually leave because of hostile work environments where the company culture is not accommodating of women. The gap in the pipeline can be addressed by establishing policies within Fortune 1000 companies changing the landscape, forever allowing women to lead and develop solutions for the future and bring them into supplier ecosystems.
  3. Underwrite certifications. To accelerate the rise of women-led supply chains, Fortune 1000 needs to take on the onus of underwriting certifications to reduce the burden on diverse technology suppliers trying to build and raise their business. Supplier certifications are a huge investment that largely contributes to small businesses with a lack of funds being unable to deliver to their full capability.
  4. Focused networking with buyers. It is a no-brainer that networking is an essential element for business growth; however, facilitating focused networking sessions will help explore unique and creative solutions developed in a diverse environment.
  5. Solution Showcase. Sixty percent of digital sales are carried out through online marketplaces already, and the number of new marketplaces is growing rapidly to create visibility of potential solutions. Access solutions from Women In Cloud solution marketplace that helps buyers access enterprise-ready solutions developed by women founders for Fortune 1000 companies to incorporate in their supplier network. 

The solution is quite simple to pinpoint, if we double down on investments and engagements with female founders, the world’s largest organizations could succeed in abolishing the gender gap in tech entrepreneurship while accelerating economic recovery. 

At Women in Cloud we are committed to developing solutions and generating resources that are dedicated to enabling Fortune brands and enterprise companies to create an economic impact; 

1. WiCxFortune100 Initiative: A turn-key equity advancing solutions for Fortune 100 companies to come together and collectively solve gender-equity challenges through representation, recruitment and relationship building.

2. WiC Solution Marketplace: A one-stop-shop for technology solutions and services for the mid-to-enterprise market, created, owned, and operated by women entrepreneurs.

3. Fortune 100 Lunch and Learn Series: A high-level networking experience designed to open the doors for leading fortune companies and brands to connect with technology business builders. 

I invite you and your brand to get engaged with us to unlock economic access while making the supplier programs diverse and inclusive in the ecosystem.

Website: https://womenincloud.com 

Calling all female tech founders to take 2021 Edition of Covid19 Impact Survey to help us identify and build economic relief and recovery solutions

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