Learn How to Nail Your First Lightning Talk at This Year's Grace Hopper Celebration

San Francisco, CA, September 28, 2015 (Newswire.com) - Two of the tech industry’s most influential speakers and leaders, Poornima Vijayashanker and Karen Catlin, are set to present at the Anita Borg Institute’s Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) of Women In Computing Conference next month in Houston, TX. Poornima and Karen, who have just collaborated on a yet-to-be released book on public speaking, Present! The Step-by-Step Guide to Public Speaking for Techies, will host a workshop on how to give your first lightning talk.

“As a woman in tech, I’m honored that Karen and I have the opportunity to share our knowledge with other women to help them succeed and achieve their goals. Women are severely underrepresented at tech conferences, so hopefully Karen and I can encourage and inspire more of them to get involved,” said Poornima, founding engineer of Mint and founder of Femgineer, an education company that empowers techies of all backgrounds to build forward-thinking companies and products.

"As a woman in tech, I'm honored that Karen and I have the opportunity to share our knowledge with other women to help them succeed and achieve their goals. Women are severely underrepresented at tech conferences, so hopefully Karen and I can encourage and inspire more of them to get involved."

Poornima, Vijayashanker

In the workshop, Poornima and Karen will share their tips and insights on how to extract expertise, overcome stage fright, identify key takeaways, and engage an audience through storytelling. 

Karen, a former executive at Adobe Systems and now founder of Karen Catlin Consulting, is an advocate for women in tech, a leadership coach, and a gender diversity advisor. “After a successful career working for companies such as Adobe, my mission now is to ‘pay it forward’ by inspiring and helping the next generation of women in tech,” Karen said.

Attendees will have two chances to experience Poornima and Karen’s workshop on Wednesday, October 14 at 10:30 am and 1:15 pm. For more information, go to gracehopper-dot-org.

ABOUT FEMGINEER

Femgineer is an education company that empowers tech professionals to build products and companies through in-depth courses, books, and workshops. Launching in 2007 as a blog, founder, Poornima Vijayashanker, turned her successful blog into business to help tech professionals and entrepreneurs, especially women, level up their careers. Femgineer has become a premier source for all tech professionals of diverse backgrounds.

ABOUT KAREN CATLIN CONSULTING

Karen Catlin Consulting advocates for women in the tech industry by coaching women to be stronger leaders and men who want to be better allies for women and increase diversity at their companies. Founder Karen Catlin speaks across the country about gender diversity, leadership, and women in tech while catalyzing change through the Male Allies initiative.