SOUTHFIELD – Every year, on the fourth Thursday of April, thousands of technology professionals take a break from connecting data to the cloud or learning the next hot programming language to mentor young girls. The local Cisco Southfield office partnered with Focus Hope, Cisco Networking Academy, to offer a day of education around information and communication technology (ICT) careers.

Across the world, over 1400 Cisco volunteers signed up in 90 locations to inspire over 3300 girls in 56 countries. This day of mentorship is incredibly important, because according to the Cisco website, women only make up approximately one-quarter of the ICT workforce.

The students spent most of the day at Cisco with a very interactive agenda, followed by a visit to Focus Hope. The intent was to learn about the ICT and the professional opportunities in this field, and then immediately connect to a place in their community where they can learn the skills needed to succeed. At Focus Hope, the girls toured the facility and labs, played tech trivia games, and met with several members of the staff.

To kick off the morning at Cisco Southfield, Alison Gleeson, Senior Vice President of the Americas Sales organization and a Michigan native, shared her personal journey and wisdom gained along the way to a very successful career in tech. She mentored the girls that they are smart and to be open to new possibilities. Alison encouraged them to challenge themselves and they would know they are if they experience the butterflies of fear–“butterflies are good�! and encouraged curiosity. Her ability to relate to the young girls with inspiring and often funny stories was genuine and engaging.

Next, the girls experienced the latest in business collaboration systems, Cisco Collaboration Video technologies. First, connecting with girls and leaders attending the same event around the world and then meeting Cisco Greengineer Shraddha Chaplot who works in San Jose, CA. Shraddha told the group how she loved math from an early age, and showed the girls how she uses her creativity to ensure she has fun at work and whatever she is doing.

According to Chuck Robbins, Senior Vice President, “the technology industry has never been more dynamic or more exciting. Now, more than ever, we need to be doing all we can to build the diverse talent pipeline that will lead our industry into the future.”

On the San Jose campus, engineer Shraddha Chaplot kicked off the event telling the group how she loved math from an early age, and showed the girls how she uses her creativity in everyday life. She was also able to impact the Michigan girls by connecting for a special one on one session with the office over Cisco Collaboration Video technologies.

Women are traditionally drawn to careers that allow a positive social impact since they are innately caring. Therefore, jobs like nursing or teaching are common choices for women, but Internet of Things (IoT) is paving a new way for how technology can help people. Every company is now an ICT company, and this insight can change the way young women value careers in ICT. The technical theme of the day was around IoT and Internet of Everything because it enables technology to bring that social value women seek.

After participating in a demo of a connected basketball can help train players, the girls played a game of “find the sensor” as part of a quick lesson on IoT. The girls were able to spend more time brainstorming with mentors ideas for a upcoming Cisco IoT Contest for girls 13 � 18 with $20,000 to first place. The girls attending also had valuable mentoring sessions with several volunteer mentors from the office. Mentors helped understand their IoT idea, but also spent more time speed mentoring to share their advice.

Cisco predicts that about 1 percent of the world is connected today, which leaves a great amount of opportunity for all people to create new, impactful ways to connect the other 99 percent for a greater good. According to McKinsey, there will be shortage of around 40 million jobs that require high-skilled workers in the future. Those positions should open to young people from all backgrounds, including girls and young women.

Training programs can accelerate the number of skilled networking employees that enter the global workforce. Cisco�s Networking Academy (NetAcad), for instance, has trained over five million students, and 96 percent of those reported say that the skills they learned at NetAcad have been important to their overall career.

This event gears to educate, inform, and provide these women with real role models with careers in ICT. The world needs a generation of young women with careers in technology all over the world. Once women start to see what they are passionate about, they can explore into the Internet of Things and see how they can easily apply education to a wonderful career.

Link to Cisco Networking Academy at NetAcad.Com

Contest Link for the LOTChallenge-Cisco.younoodle.Com, an opportunity for young women aged 13-18 to submit ideas around new uses of Internet of Things and Internet of Everything technologies.

Associate Editor Nicole Johnson leads MITechNews.Com�s efforts to foster STEM education, as well as provides coverage for her fellow women in computing. She also works for Cisco. If you have a story idea for Nicole, email [email protected] Follow Nicole on Twitter: @tech_nicole