What is ELEVATE?

Every year, Girl Geek X brings together thousands of women technologists, innovators and tech leaders from around the world to share the latest in tech and leadership with fellow mid-and-senior level professional women, non-binary folks, and our allies.

Since our inaugural International Women’s Day virtual conference in 2018, dozens of leading brands have leveraged our virtual events to drive top-of-funnel candidate diversity and build more inclusive Engineering, Product, and other technical teams.

Our ELEVATE virtual conferences and career fairs are 100% FREE for attendees. Last year, over 7,000 women signed up to attend – tuning in from 42 countries around the world – to be inspired by speakers on the latest in tech trends, professional development and leadership.

Session content typically covers the following topics:

• Lightning Talks – Dive deep into an area that’s unique / critical to your business or role, from engineer to product, sharing strategy or insights.
• Technical Skills & Tactics – Tutorials, walkthroughs, or deep dives into a skillset (e.g. technical interviewing), product, or tactical approach to how you solved a real-world challenge.
• Learning & Development – Topics include negotiation, mid-career job searches, interviewing tips, managing up, self-awareness, ageism / return to work bias, mental health, etc.
  

Apply to Speak!

We are currently seeking speaker proposals for virtual ELEVATE Conference & Career Fair!

Girl Geek X invites women technologists, innovators and tech leaders from around the world to apply to speak and share the latest in tech and leadership with fellow mid-and-senior level women in technology!

Work on a unique technical project or have interesting insights you’d love to share? We want to hear from you! Both first-time and experienced speakers are welcome to apply. 

Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, so there is no hard deadline to apply… but earlier is always better! The agenda is usually pretty well filled 2+ months prior to the event date.

You may resubmit or submit multiple proposals at any time.

If submitting a panel or fireside chat, please include additional speakers’ names, titles, and companies somewhere in your application.

If it has been more than 6 months since you’ve applied, we recommend resubmitting.

Submit your proposal for a talk here  to be considered and invited to speak.

Why speak?

• Share the exciting technology you’re working on, products you’re building, and tough problems you’re solving.
• Increase your visibility within your own organization and position yourself as a subject-matter expert.
• Discuss what you’ve learned the hard way so that other women can more easily navigate their own careers — your talk will reach thousands of viewers!
• Highlight issues unique to women in technology/leadership, and issues you’ve experienced or are passionate about.
• Spotlight your company‘s product, services, and employer brand.
• Connect with other great women leaders, peers and mentors.
• Elevating other women is a fun and rewarding experience!

Topics our community is excited about:

• How your company does X – code review / gen AI / DEI / dev productivity / architecture / etc. Tell us how you’re doing things differently, and share examples or insights other tech leaders can implement in their own orgs.
• Technical interviewing for leadership roles (director and up) and individual contributors (ICs) from staff and up
• Mid-to-senior-career transitions – technical interview prep / restarting after a hiatus / switching fields mid-career
• AI – AI for job search / AI for good / prompt engineering / how to improve your AI skills
• Infosec – cybersecurity
• Data – how to implement a data strategy / data trends
• Future of work – emerging skills / emerging fields / trends & predictions
• Supply chain – logistics / AI / autonomous transport
• Health & Environment – combating climate change / trending health issues / healthtech
• Preventing Bias – algorithmic, hiring / retention / promotion / dealing with ageism
• Conflict management – navigating hierarchy / office politics / people / transcending differences
• Personal development – courage / vulnerability / identifying & preventing burnout
• Networking – networking skills + tips / maintaining connections long-term / getting a referral without a network
• Negotiation – pay / severance / understanding options and equity
• Finance – investing / real estate / fintech / crypto
• DEI – working in DEI roles / building inclusive teams / fostering a psychologically safe culture
• Pride – transitioning at work / making LGBTQIA+ folks feel welcome + considered / building inclusive teams / leveraging allyship
• What you’re most passionate about! – tell us wha gets you fired up, and let’s geek out together!
• Submit your talk proposal here!

Need inspo? Here are some previous sessions attendees loved!

• Domain Expert Talks:
  • Engineering – modernizing mobile codebases, resilience, sales engineering, ensuring artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity
  • UX / Design / Research – integrating inclusive research into design, the imperative of diversity in clinical trials, designing products scaling human experiences
  • Investment / Ecosystem – the link between the future of work, education and care, economic justice and cryptocurrencies / web3
• Career / Self Care / Strategy Talks:
  • Career Journeys – start with who: choosing your next career opportunity, office manager to CPO, how to get the promotion you deserve, resilience, how to lead if management is not for you
  • Productivity / Mental Health – overcoming proximity bias, communications strategies for remote teams, riding the highs and lows: navigating bad mental health days at the work space
  • Imposter Syndrome – the intersection of product management and gender: strategies for navigating the hidden pitfalls, what’s holding you back might be you
  • Strategy / Negotiation – successfully pushing for pay equity at a company, decision-making at scale, ‘thank u, next’: how ‘diversity’ gets in the way of gender equity

How to write a speaker submission, from our friends at Autodesk:

Sample Speaker Bio Template:

[name] is [job title] at [company]. In this role, she is responsible for [key activities]. Previously, she was [role] at [company] -OR- She has worked in this industry for [number of years]. She is passionate about [what motivates you]. She volunteers / leads [organizations and/or employee resource groups]. She studied [focus area] at [school].

Talk Title / Abstract Tips:

There are three parts to writing a talk title and abstract. Structure your thoughts around them to tell a short and complete story.

1. Talk Title – Keep it simple and straightforward. Use terms that others might use to search for it.
2. Problem Statement – Explain briefly the challenge you will help others address and the different perspective or experience that you can share with them.
3. Benefits / Takeaways – Tell others clearly how they will benefit by spending time with you (e.g. the insights or skills they will learn). This can be a simple list of takeaways for conference attendees.

Still not sure what to talk about?

Check out our 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018 conference websites. You can find a bunch of videos at the Girl Geek X YouTube channel from past virtual events and our Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners.

Interested in partnering with Girl Geek X?

Promote your brand, products, employer brand, or open roles to our community of 40,000+ mid-to-senior women in tech!

For those with offices in the San Francisco Bay Area, consider hosting a Girl Geek Dinner. Your teams selects your speakers and sets the menu, and we’ll fill your space with women from the Girl Geek community who are excited to learn more about your company and your open roles.

Thank you for supporting our initiative to elevate women in tech and build a safe, supportive community where women & allies can connect to learn, share and grow in their careers!