On day three of the Women Tech Council in Utah, Governor Spencer Cox spoke about the SheTech Explorer Day event. The event hosted 4,000 junior high and high school girls and provided them with exposure to the tech industry. Governor Cox, who has expertise in business, entrepreneurship, and tech, expressed his excitement and gratitude for the event, which he believes opened many doors for these young girls. He emphasized the importance of mentorship, saying "you can't be what you can't see".
Governor Cox shared his own experience of turning his great grandfather's rural telephone company into a regional internet company and encouraged young women to explore the tech industry, which has been male-dominated for a long time. He praised SheTech for providing an interactive day with hundreds of mentors available to talk to, and an opportunity for young women to decide if the tech industry is something they're interested in pursuing. Cox stated that it's important to learn what you don't want to do as much as what you want to do, and SheTech offers that opportunity for young women to explore the tech industry.
Barclay Burns - Assistant Dean at the School of Engineering and Technology Utah Valley University Barclay Burns is the assistant Dean for Utah Valley University, focusing on AI and serving on the board of directors for the Utah Innovation Fund and the Automation Fund. He is passionate about investing in female tech and life science leaders and creating a women and AI symposium. Utah recently passed an AI bill, which includes guardrails and an AI laboratory for companies to innovate and learn in a safe environment. AI has promise and peril, and Utah is taking steps to ensure proper regulation and policy.
The co-founder of Chatbooks, Vanessa Quigley, discussed the company's mission to make it easy for people to preserve their memories in physical form. The company's software automates the process of creating photo books and enables users to print their Instagram photos. Chatbooks is now exploring the use of AI to automatically curate photos and generate captions based on the user's writing style. Research has shown that printing photos can have a positive impact on family relationships. Chatbooks is looking to attract more women to help create products that resonate with their primarily female customer base.
Dan Cathy is the CEO and investor of VOZE, a platform that helps industrial companies manage their field sales teams. He attended an event to support his daughter, who was attending high school for the first time. The event captivated Dan with its vast scale and the thousands of young girls in attendance. He believes that these events offer excellent opportunities for young girls to explore diverse career paths and gain exposure to different opportunities. Dan has worked with some amazing women in tech, from engineers to tech entrepreneurs, investors, and more. He acknowledges the value of women in the tech industry and looks forward to seeing more women enter it. He believes that women bring diverse perspectives to an industry that men have long dominated, and this would lead to better outcomes for everyone.
In our last segment for this series, we have Kirk Ouimet, CEO and Co-Founder for Phi, spoke about his passion for improving health through technology at the Woman Tech Council's She Tech Explorer Day. Phi, named after the golden ratio (1.618), aims to use AI to debug and understand why our bodies fail. Kirk believes we live in an exciting time for this kind of work and was at the event to mentor and advise others.
[00:00:00] Governor of Utah
[00:06:49] Spencer Cox
[00:13:00] Barclay Burns
[00:20:50] Vanessa Quigley - Co-Founder of Chatbooks
[00:29:58] Dan Caffee - CEO of VOZE
[00:37:38] Kirk Quimet - CEO and Founder of Phi
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