Written by volunteer writer Adithya Ganesh
In Anthony Gold’s podcast, he invites Tracey Welson-Rossman (Founder of TechGirlz) to talk about her contributions, her journey, and the lessons she learned along the path of her career.
Tracey has been a big advocate for young women getting into tech. As a result of her passion, she founded TechGirlz and the Women In Tech Summit. She has also contributed greatly at the Philly Startup Scene and Chariot Solutions.
Tracey got into the technical field after she graduated from Drexel University in retail management and marketing, and began to work and become one of the lead members in the Chariot Solutions company.
She then went on to start up a transportation business with her husband, when they were having their second child.
One problem she sought out to solve, was that in both the startup community and the development community, there weren’t many women participants. She began to research and started communicating with many different women about this issue, and realized that something had to be done about it. This is where she founded Tech Girlz to combat this issue.
After the first workshop, Tracey began to scale up the organization and began transforming TechGirlz to cater around the needs of these young girls.
“This needs to be fun. Nobody is going to want to do something in a professional setting that is boring,” said Tracey.
Finally, the first TechShop in a Box was made. The girls would voice their opinions, and the lesson plan books were created off of that. Refinement and feedback were the leading factors to the growth of the company.
“We were the only ones in the market. We were really, the only group to even recognize this market and cater to it,” said Tracey. Tracey believed that if middle school girls were the main priority of the company, the number of women in tech would increase immensely. Tracey mentioned that the path to success is to not fear failure. Tracey stated that she didn’t want to be one of the people that complain about this problem, but someone that wants to take action on it.
Tracey plans on advocating and promoting the equality of both genders, in both employment as well as with family. Tracey also advocates and speaks on behalf of women tech start ups and women promotional speakers.