Girls in Tech Toronto #PowerHourSocial: 4 Entrepreneurial Lessons for Women

Today, I made my way to the Edelman office in downtown Toronto for my first event organized by Girls in Tech Toronto (@GITdot). Why I haven’t I gone to a GITdot event before? I have no idea because this #PowerHourSocial was amazing.

The concept of driving innovation and supporting women in technology (traditionally dominated by men) is important to me.

I left the event feeling inspired having learnt so much and talked to women who are smart, driven and ambitious.

As the blog post title says, I have 4 quickie lessons that I took away from the presenters:

1. Alison Gibbins (Simplify Analytics) > Baby Simplify lets new parents in on what they need and don’t need for their baby.
Do what works for you as an entrepreneur in terms of using your time. Think about how you want to go about pushing out your business – go-go-go approach or the slow and steady approach? Think about leveraging the opportunities when you aren’t working your full-time job (i.e. maternity leave).

2. Lorena Scott (MommiesFirst) > MommiesFirst delivers customized  best-of- market baby products according to the baby stages.
Be brave because being an entrepreneur is lonely. Women tend to work hard and be even tougher on themselves.

3. Tamar Melissa Huggins (Driven Accelerator) > Driven Accelerator mentors start-up entrepreneurs in an accelerator style. And, they operate as a non-profit organization!
Make a difference in the lives of others. It’s a selfless approach to building a business, and it can and will work.

4. Natasha Baker (SnapEDA) > SnapEDA is a social network for electrical engineers who are looking to share and acquire CAD representations.
Build on your strengths, and leverage them where you see opportunities. In this case, Natasha saw a big hole in the way her fellow electrical engineers were sourcing visual representations of circuit boards.

Sorry, no pictures. The ones that I took were too blurry! I need to bring a real camera next time.

Check out the next Girls in Tech Toronto event here.