“I go to these conferences, and I look to the left, I look to the right, and no one looks like me,” said Jakira Jekayinfa-Brown, associate electrical engineer for East Bay Municipal Utility District in Oakland, California, at the start of a luncheon panel discussion on Women in Technology at this week’s Honeywell User Group (HUG) Americas 2022.
She was joined on stage by host Carrie Sinclair, vice president of customer marketing for performance materials and technologies at Honeywell, and panelists Ethel Nakano, general manager of Syncrude projects for Suncor; Tammie Borders, senior government relations manager at Quantinuum; and Veronica Turner, sales lead for safety solutions with Honeywell Process Solutions. While the panel of women was quite diverse, that’s not replicated for the most part in technology sectors, and the panelists discussed what it’s like always being in the minority and how has the conversation about women has changed over their careers.
“What ignites my passion are the possibilities and the technology that lies ahead,” Jekayinfa-Brown said. As scary as it might be for her to not see others that look like her, she knows, “I’m exactly where I need to be.”
To learn more, read "Women in technology inspire diversity, culture change" from Control.