What time is the Women in Voice Gratitude Gala on December 2?

Since this event features 2 rounds of networking, we hope you can join us LIVE no matter where you live!

WiV Gala Agenda | Time Zone Tool | December 2

>> Below you can see the agenda in your time zone – or one near you. Find a nearby city and click to expand! 

Expand your community. Meet other women navigating their career in voice tech. Join the conversation.  

ALL WOMEN & ALLIES ARE WELCOME!

Kesha Williams, Principal Training Architect (AWS), A Cloud Guru

Women in Voice Gala Speaker

AWS Machine Learning Hero | APN Ambassador | Alexa Champion

 Kesha Williams is an award-winning software engineer and technology leader teaching others to transform their lives through technology. Forbes, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Oracle have applauded her contributions to the technology community, and she has spoken on the TED stage about the transformative power of artificial intelligence (AI). Amazon recognized her pioneering work in AI with both its AWS Machine Learning Hero and Alexa Champion honors — the first person to receive both. Williams was named Mentor of the Year by Women Tech Network and received the Innovator Award from Hospitality Technology. She made her first film appearance in the 2020 tech documentary, “Hello World: The Film.” Additionally, Williams serves on the Board of Directors for Women in Voice and as a mentor to women in tech. Learn more at http://www.kesha.tech

Surbhi Rathore, CEO & Co-Founder, Symbl.ai

Women in Voice Gala Speaker

Surbhi Rathore is the CEO and co-founder of Symbl.ai. Symbl is bringing to life her vision for a programmable platform that empowers developers and businesses to monitor, act, and comply with voice, video conversations at scale in their products and workflows without building their in- house data science expertise. This Techstars alum co-founded Symbl almost 3 years ago and is now backed by Amazon and has raised an early-stage venture round of $6.5M which deployed capital to grow a global team of tech enthusiasts to more than 50 people. She comes with experience from technical and customer-obsessed roles in both startups and enterprises such as Nevis Networks and Amdocs. Before co-founding Symbl, she worked in the Conversational AI space with a focus on delivering value to Telecommunication users. Surbhi is an international tech leader who advocates for Women in AI with a personal mission to inspire more women to work in Data Science. She is a national speaker, an accessibility equity champion, and the ultimate adventure capitalist. Surbhi has been honored with the Women in Voice Award for Founder of the Year, Amazon’s Top 10 Women to Watch in 2020, and the Will Reed Top 50 Companies in 2021. Follow her and her company‘s recent work on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Cathy Pearl, Design Manager on Google Assistant at Google 

Women in Voice Gala Speaker

Cathy Pearl works at Google as a design manager on Google Assistant, and is the author of the O’Reilly book, “Designing Voice User Interfaces”. She’s been creating Voice User Interfaces (VUIs) for over 20 years and is passionate about helping everyone make the best conversational experiences possible. Previously, Cathy was VP of User Experience at Sensely, whose virtual nurse avatar helps people stay healthy. She has worked on everything from programming NASA helicopter pilot simulators to designing a conversational iPad app in which Esquire magazine’s style columnist tells users what they should wear on a first date. She has an MS in Computer Science from Indiana University and a BS in Cognitive Science from UC San Diego.

Jessica Dene Earley-Cha, Developer Relations Engineer, Google Assistant 

Women in Voice Gala Speaker

Jessica Dene Earley-Cha (she/her) is a Developer Relations Engineer for Google Assistant. She has been teaching developers how to build voice applications and App Actions for over 3 years. She enjoys connecting with developers and future developers. Jessica is @WomenInVoice Advocate, former @WomenTechmakers & @gdg lead, former @girldevelopit & @Hackbright teacher. Before attending a software bootcamp in 2015, Jessica worked in the non-profit sector for over 10 years, working primarily with at-risk female youths and adults with mental health challenges.

Elizabeth Scallon, GTM & Operations, Alexa Startups

Women in Voice Gala Speaker

Award winning leader in the Pacific Northwest startup ecosystem. Elizabeth is a scientist, mentor, and 15 year leader in scientific and technological innovation.

LEADERSHIP IMPACT:
⫸ Connecting enterprise to new ventures
⫸ Nurturing talent and growing teams, startups and communities
⫸ Trend assessment in the global innovation ecosystem

Known for a keen ability to locate disruptive and innovative technology, Elizabeth currently leads the Go To Market & Operations for the Amazon Alexa Fund and Startups team. Here she is engaging ambient and immersive startup founders and investors through startup programs, business development, and technical support. The Alexa Fund also provides up to $200 million in venture capital funding to fuel voice technology innovation.

Elizabeth led the launch of WeWork’s startup and incubation arm, WeWork Labs in US West and LATAM, and previous to WeWork Elizabeth led the team at CoMotion Labs at the University of Washington coaching and growing the robust bench of NW tech and biotech startups.

An out lesbian from before the L Word pilot episode, Elizabeth has a passion for spotlighting and developing outsider voices. A tendency that aided her biotech startup team at VLST (her title: Head of Ops) grow to 50 employees and $35M in funding.

Obsessed with growth and knowledge, Elizabeth went from a degree in Biochemistry, to Georgetown’s Global Executive MBA in Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Emerging Markets. She was most recently invited to join the 2019 cohort of Harvard Business School’s YALP program which aims to develop leaders who understand cross-sector collaborations for shared prosperity and can implement them more effectively and spread them more rapidly than in the past.

Despite an active travel schedule overseeing labs and showcasing Seattle talent in SF, LA, NYC and internationally, Elizabeth is a hometown hero. She grew up in Seattle, plays the connector and mentor role in building Seattle’s booming economy, and she lives on Beacon Hill with her wife and toddler. Sundays usually mean farmer’s markets and family brunch.

Amy Dolin Oliver, PhD, Conversation Design @ VASS & Art Crashes Tech | Content Design | Storytelling

Women in Voice Gala Speaker 

I help businesses create conversation and content experiences that delight their customers.

You can see some of my work here: https://www.amydolinoliver.com/

To do this I start by asking a lot of questions about business objectives, who the audience is (users) and their jobs to be done, tech specifics and desired outcomes to create a content strategy framework. Next I work with the design and product teams to design the flows and words — interweaving inclusion, data privacy, usability, and plain language best practices. I’m a bit obsessed with the entire content experience for people across all touch points of an organization and love the insights gathered during product testing through to customer service.

I am also an artist and speak and write about the intersection of art, tech and society. I want a future where the human five senses are empowered in a technological world.

Key skills and interests: conversation design, content design, content strategy, UX writing, UX research, lean UX strategies, creativity, curiosity, entrepreneur spirit, problem solving in uncertain terrain, fast learner, collaborating on cross functional teams, project management, coaching, workshop facilitation, equality, privacy, systems thinking, agile, lean, Sketch, Figma, Jira, Confluence, Google Suite, Miro, Trello

Connect with Dr. Dolin Oliver on LinkedIn!

Clara Jiménez, FullStack JavaScript Developer, Gamelearn | Alexa Skills Developer 

Women in Voice Gala Speaker 

I’m a Telecommunications Engineer who works as a JavaScript developer. I have spent 4 years of my professional career in a research environment surrounded by papers and teaching at the University. When it felt like time for a change of career and lifestyle, I decided to start over in a new company working with my guilty pleasure: JavaScript. It could be said that, in 2020, my career just took an unexpected twist – from being a PhD researcher to working as a FullStack developer. In the meantime, I have really enjoyed creating multiple voice applications for Alexa in my spare-time.

You can take a look at my Alexa Skills and some of my side projects here: https://clara-jr.github.io/projects

Ethel González, Innovation Developer en Nativo Digital // Senior Tech Voice Developer 

Women in Voice Gala Speaker | Women in Voice Mexico Ambassador

Egresada de la Licenciatura en ciencias de la Informática de la UPIICSA, IPN. Con experiencia profesional de 8 años en desarrollo de software.

Experiencia de 5 años en desarrollo Web creando sistemas para el sector financiero, además de sistemas a la medida para empresas del sector privado, creando, manipulando y dando soporte utilizando diferentes bases de datos como MySQL, SQL Server, MongoDB y DynamoDB.

En temas de desarrollo tengo amplio conocimiento en PHP y NodeJS, y conocimiento medio en Go Lang.

Experiencia de 3 años y medio desarrollando servicios en la nube con Amazon Web Services y Google Cloud Platform.

Experiencia de 2 años en desarrollo de aplicaciones de voz, trabajando en un total de 41 proyectos de los cuales 30 eran de Alexa Skill y 7 de Google, desarrollé traducciones de 4 proyectos para el idioma portugués y español (US) para Amazon Alexa.

Cuento con conocimientos muy sólidos sobre la tecnología de Amazon Alexa, ya que tuve la fortuna de trabajar en conjunto con Arquitectos de Soluciones de Amazon MX y el privilegio de obtener enormes conocimientos de un Excelente Evangelista Técnico de Amazon MX.

Connect with Ethel on LinkedIn!

Eva Janeiro, Profe de UX Writing, La Nave Nodriza & UX Writer, Hanzo Studio

Women in Voice Gala Speaker 

Diseño experiencias conversacionales, amables y eficaces, 100% libres de Lorem Ipsum.

Llevo más de 10 años trabajando como diseñadora especializada en contenido, dignificando el poder del contenido de calidad en el proceso de diseño. Doy mucha importancia a la parte de la Investigación y es una faceta en la que me encanta involucrarme.

Ser madre ha mejorado exponencialmente mis habilidades de comunicación, liderazgo y sobre todo, en cómo me relaciono con las personas y los conceptos desde una perspectiva empática, humilde y de infinito aprendizaje. Es una experiencia que me hace crecer cada día como profesional entregada al comportamiento humano.

En mi tiempo de ocio, practico roller derby. Un deporte que ha venido a confirmarme que soy una mujer fuerte, con las ideas claras, que trabajo muy bien en equipo y que lo doy todo por el fin común.

Estoy especialmente interesada en proyectos de carácter social.

Connect with Eva on LinkedIn!

Nieves Ábalos, Chief Product Officer & Founder, Monoceros Labs | Conversational Interfaces Engineer | Alexa Champion

Women in Voice Gala Speaker | Women in Voice Spain Founder 

Conversational Interfaces Engineer: VUI, Chatbots, Artificial Intelligence, and NLP specialist. Knowing the current limitations of technology, and understanding the conversational design principles of conversations (through voice and text) my goal is to design the best experiences for conversational interfaces.

Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of Monoceros, an Innovation Studio focused on building real conversational experiences (defining a voice strategy, designing conversations and implementing voice solutions). Currently specialized at Alexa Skills (Amazon Alexa) and Google Action (Google Assistant): voice and multimodal apps. AWS Alexa Skill Builder certified.

My goal is to create innovative products to everyday problems powered by technology. Enthusiastic of entrepreneurship and ways of learning sooner the better: Lean Startup, Design Thinking, Rapid Prototyping. I love translating ideas to products people want.

Former Product Manager of an Intelligent Agents platform at BEEVA, acquired by BBVA. Researcher on Natural Language Processing, Dialog Systems (aka Chatbots) and Artificial Intelligence since 2009. UGR Alumni.

Connect with Nieves on LinkedIn!

Irene Medina Domínguez, Virtual Assistants Lead Engineer, NTT DATA

Women in Voice Gala Speaker  

Connect with Irene on LinkedIn!

Esther Checa, Head of Innovation, t2ó  

Women in Voice Gala Speaker | Women in Voice Spain Ambassador 

My professional career has always been linked to Digital Marketing, Communication, and Innovation Areas. In the first stage within Knowledge Management and Communication of Arthur Andersen, Deloitte, Cap Gemini Ernest&Young and Telefónica, playing the role of Knowledge Manager; and in the last 15 years, with a focus on Digital Marketing within the t2ó Digital Marketing Consultancy, as Head of Natural Search Engine Optimization, Content Marketing, and Social Media Department; and since 2017, as Head of Innovation.

In recent years, I have led the launch of two business areas through the design of their digital services, definition of their methodology, recruitment, and coordination of specialized profiles for their implementation in production. This career path has allowed me to connect technology, business, product, and people areas, obtaining a deep vision that impacts the company’s income statement.

Being a member of the company’s management committee helps me to identify opportunities in an agile way, make strategic decisions, and gain in-depth knowledge of the business characteristics of the different industries. For the last 3 years, I have been leading the Innovation Area, with a transversal goal that allows me to identify, connect and integrate new advertising channels, differential digital solutions, and agreements with technological partners with the company’s business model.

I am a lecturer in the areas of Digital Marketing Strategy, Digital Transformation, Voice Search, Conversational Marketing (virtual assistants), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Content Marketing, and Online Reputation in Search Engines, in the main national business schools for their top management, masters and in-company programs since 2008. Having trained more than 1,500 students over these years has allowed me to develop a great capacity for analysis, resolution, emotional intelligence, dialogue, and assertiveness in the learning process with them.

I am an ambassador in different tech communities: Women in Voice Spain, Open Voice Network, and Mujeres Tech through conferences, development of outreach materials, and women mentoring.

At an academic level, I have a degree in Information Sciences, a degree in Documentation, a PhD in Information Retrieval Systems (reading of the thesis) from Carlos III University, and a Master’s degree in Data Analytics from ISDI.

I consider myself a person with a strong innovative spirit, resilience, strategic vision oriented to business and results, excellent communication skills, leadership, and teamwork.

Connect with Esther on LinkedIn!

Oita Coleman, Senior Advisor at Open Voice Network – CEO/Founder at Servant Voice Technologies – Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Tech – Public Servant

Women in Voice Gala Speaker 

Oita Coleman is a change agent who doesn’t shy away from opportunities to create innovative solutions to complex challenges. Throughout her career, she is distinguished by an innate talent to “connect the dots” that wind through an organization — bringing people and processes together into a coherent whole.

Oita currently serves as Senior Advisor to Open Voice Network, and as CEO/Founder of Servant Voice Technologies.

Oita previously served as R&D Vice President of the Quality User-driven Enterprise Software Testing (QUEST) Division at SAS. She had overall oversight of the quality of SAS products and solutions with the implementation of processes, standards, and policies for the software development life cycle, directed towards improving overall customer satisfaction of the product portfolio. She was responsible for the leadership, coordination, and direction of over 800 software testing professionals in the United States, Scotland, China and India.

With over thirty years of experience in the software industry, she has led teams responsible for enterprise software testing, software development, user interface design, systems administration, and computer game testing. Her various roles have given her expansive experience with a broad range of technologies — mainframe to microcomputers to personal computers to handheld devices, powerful programming languages and methodologies, as well as new business models of cloud services and software-as-a-service.

Active in the community, her life motto is “to whom much is given, much more is required” which fuels her desire to give back. Her passion is helping to inspire the next generation of STEM knowledge professionals – focusing on advancing educational and career development opportunities for underrepresented minorities and women in STEM disciplines. She recently received the inaugural Great Place to Work® For All™ Leadership Award recognizing women leaders from companies on the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For. Additionally, her efforts were recognized by US Black Engineer & IT Magazine as “Women Who Make a Difference in Technology”. She serves on the Board of Trustees at North Carolina Central University. She represents SAS on the Wake STEM Early College High School Business Advisory Board, and is on the UNC-Greensboro College of Arts and Science Advancement Council.

Dr. Joan Palmiter Bajorek

Women in Voice Gala Speaker 

Dr. Joan Palmiter Bajorek is the CEO and Founder of Women in Voice (WiV), the global nonprofit supporting women in voice AI. Ranked the #4 Voice AI Influencer, Bajorek is a leader in the voice tech field internationally.

Formerly working at Nuance, Bajorek is currently a Technical Advisor for several startups and companies. She has 9+ years of experience in strategy and execution for conversational AI products across healthcare, telecom, government, and customer service verticals.

Speaking with global audiences, she has been a featured or keynote speaker at CES, VentureBeat, L3-AI by Rasa, GeekGirlCon, Girls Who Code, Women in AI Summit, among others. Her PhD research and writing has been featured in Harvard Business Review (HBR), Cambridge University Press, Adobe XD Ideas, and Samantha Bee’s Full Frontal on TBS. She holds a PhD from the UArizona in the field of speech language technology and an MA in Linguistics from the UC, Davis. She lives in Seattle, WA.