My TechWomen Experience in pictures : 5 weeks in Silicon Valley

TechWomen - an opportunity of a lifetime!

TechWomen is a professional exchange program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. Awardees get to spend 5 weeks in the San Francisco Bay Area. I had been applying to be part of this amazing program since 2013 - finally in 2022 I got to go! As someone who applied so many times and for so long, I have quite a bit of experience with the application so if you would like to apply check out my previous article where I share application tips.

I remember when I was applying for the program, I was so curious about what the experience of the program is like but couldn't find much to ease my curiosity. So I hope that if there's somebody who's as curious as I was, this will help them. Now let's dive right into what the experience was like!

Living experience

1550 Mission Street - my address for the 5 weeks I stayed in San Francisco. It was a fully furnished (fancy!) apartment with a cloud bed (a bed that moves up into the ceiling at the press of a button), a dish washing machine, a washing machine and dryer.. the works. I really enjoyed my stay. What was eye opening and sobering was the visible drug abuse on San Francisco's streets - it was something that I had not experienced before and was quite taken aback by. But the shopping and good company compensated for it well. Oh yes plus the stipend from the program - which was meant to be for upkeep but my new friends and I diverted it to shopping 😁. Speaking of which I cannot talk about my San Francisco experience without mentioning the shop (or store as Americans like to call it) Ross. If you're ever where there's a Ross - go right in! 🛍🤩

Professional experience

When I applied for the TechWomen program one of the things I mentioned in the application was that I wanted to be placed at a host company that has approachable leadership. My host company BigCommerce certainly lived up to that! I got to meet the CEO Brent Bellm and the CFO Robert Alvarez. Sheer inspiration and humility I tell you! Some of their nuggets of wisdom included:

💙Go do the thing you love and care about

❗Don't be the limiting factor

🎁Problems are treasures

📈Focus on people and the numbers get easier

🤼Find people who are good at what you're weak at

🤼Play the we game not the me game

👩🏾 🎓Are you mentorable?

I also got the privilege to chat with WorkBoard Inc. Founders Deidre Paknad (an entrepreneur whose last company was acquired by IBM! 😲) and Daryoush Paknad (earlier in his career he helped develop the PDF! 😲). Another wow moment was visiting Autodesk - from seeing the world's fastest motorbike which is electric to seeing how animation visual effects are created. Not forgeting sustainable engineering and analytics innovations - my mind was blown away! 

Country project experience

We had to come up with a country project - this experience taught me so much. My country mate Chiedza said it best in her post

Cultural experience

My cultural experiences were so many and so rich. I had two really cool cultural mentors who went all out taking us around!

One afternoon I was treated to great homely Indian food by Anjali Pradhan my country mate Chiedza's mentor.

On day 32 the Zimbabwean community in the Bay area hosted us to an awesome lunch! 

🍲Food and fun was had

👥Connections were made

🎶The mbira was played, we sang & danced

Impact of TechWomen beyond the 5 weeks

The experience and connections made during this program were second to none and I will forever cherish them.

This remains the best experience of my life to date! Thank you TechWomen