Leanne Pittsford
Leanne Pittsford is an American entrepreneur.[1] She started the professional network Lesbians Who Tech.[2]
Life
Pittsford received a master's degree in education, equity and social justice from San Francisco State University and a bachelor's degree in political science from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.[3]
Work
Leanne Pittsford started her career with the organization Equality California. She wanted to repeal Proposition 8, a law in California against marriage for same sex couples. She saw there were not enough networking opportunities for lesbian women. There were not any lesbian mentors to give help and advice to new people.[2]
In 2012, Pittsford started Lesbians in Tech.[2][4] In 2015 she got Edie Windsor, a former manager from IBM, to speak to the organization, and started a scholarship in her name.[2][5][6][7] Lesbians in Tech is now an international organization with 20 chapters from Berlin to Vermont.[8] It has 10,000 members. In two years, they had over 200 events in 22 cities.[9] Every year they have summits in New York, San Francisco, and Berlin.[10] In 2015 they had their first summit in Tel Aviv.[11][12]
In 2015, Lesbians in Tech received a $165,000 award from the Arrillaga-Andreessen Foundation. They wanted to create more inclusion in the technology sector. The money will help start two programs: Bring a Lesbian to Work Day, for mentoring, and the Coding Scholarship Fund, for tuition.[13]
In 2015, U.S. President Obama had an LGBT Pride reception at the White House for prominent member of the LGBT tech community. The event was attended by former Google executive and U.S. chief technology officer Megan Smith, Lesbians Who Tech founder Leanne Pittsford, and others.[13]
Pittsford also helped support five other organizations for diversity in tech: AllOut, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, CODE2040, Chicana Latina Foundation, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.[14]
References
- ↑ "MooseRoots". Moosewood Birth Records. Graphiq.[dead link]
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "Lesbians Who Tech Founder Invests in Diversity". NBC News.
- ↑ http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/print-edition/2015/03/20/40-under-40-leanne-pittsford-lesbians-who-tech.html
- ↑ Writer, Cindy Rizzo (26 September 2016). "Lesbian Spaces, The Final Frontier: A Report on the Lesbians Who Tech NYC Summit". HuffPost.
- ↑ "- Lesbians Who Tech".
- ↑ James Michael Nichols; Post, The Huffington (19 April 2016). "This 'Edie Windsor' Scholarship Will Help Queer Women Learn To Code". HuffPost.
- ↑ "Blog Post". Archived from the original on 2017-02-26. Retrieved 2017-01-10.
- ↑ FORTUNE. "What it's like to be a lesbian in tech - Fortune.com".
- ↑ "15 questions with Leanne Pittsford - CNNMoney".
- ↑ Pittsford, Leanne. "Leanne Pittsford on about.me".
- ↑ "Diversity, Pinkwashing And All Things High-Tech Are On The Agenda At 'Lesbians Who Tech' First Summit In Tel Aviv". International Business Times. 7 June 2016.
- ↑ "'Lesbians Who Tech' take on Tel Aviv".
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 "Exclusive: Andreessens give $250,000 to LGBT groups". USA Today.
- ↑ "Lesbians Who Tech".
Other websites
Awards
- Named one of "40 under 40" by San Francisco Times, 2015
- Featured in San Francisco Magazine's Power Issue, 2015
- Named one of "40 Diverse People In Tech Who Made Big Moves In 2015" by Techcrunch