This past March, Girls of Steel (GoS), along with Carnegie Mellon University, had the honor of hosting author and engineering leader Pratima Gluckman who traveled from California to visit  for several events, including our Greater Pittsburgh Regional FIRST Ladies Meetup! The experience was extremely influential on GoS and FIRST community members, as she inspired us to be strong and pursue our dreams.

On March 20, 2019, Pratima met with members of Women@SCS during lunch, and later spoke with GoS members at a special team meeting about her journey to becoming a leader at VMware, where she works with Blockchain programming. Using her challenges and setbacks as examples, she shared with GoS members the meaning of persistence and bravery, encouraging us to speak up for ourselves and acknowledge our value in any situation. The stories and statistics that she presented moved and inspired us all to be more assertive and forward-minded. More stories of inspirational women in tech can be found in her book, Nevertheless, She Persisted, where Pratima interviewed 19 female technology leaders to raise awareness of the need for diversity in the tech industry, especially in her home of Silicon Valley.

That same day, two GoS members interviewed Pratima at CMU, where they asked her more about her experiences as a leader and journey through writing her book. The interview can be found below!

Pratima also traveled to California, PA for the Greater Pittsburgh Regional at California University of Pennsylvania on March 21, 2019, where she spoke at our FIRST Ladies meetup. She shared her experience as a leader in the STEM field (at VMware), as well as her journey to becoming such a vocal advocate for women in STEM. Pratima emphasized the values of persistence, bravery, and supportive mentorship as well as the importance of increasing the number of women in c-suite positions in Fortune 500 companies, a field in which women are extremely underrepresented currently. Everyone felt motivated after hearing a strong female role model discuss her empowering insights at the meetup.

We all feel very inspired and moved by her work and journey. We highly encourage everyone to read her book and listen to her podcast, both found at pratimagluckman.com. On behalf of GoS and the FIRST Ladies community, we thank Pratima for visiting us and sharing her expertise and experience!