AAPI Heritage Month Recap
It’s the last day of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Here at PDXWIT, we put the spotlight on amazing individuals who are leading through collaboration.
At our AAPI in Tech panel, Virginia Luka (Oregon Health Authority), Padmashree Koneti (Tableau), and Anna Madill (Avenue) gave us a glimpse of how collaborative leaders can uplift a community and help to demolish the bamboo ceiling. During our May Happy Lunch Hour, we continued to explore this thread with our friends Allie Yee and Kim Lepin, co-Executive Directors at APANO.
Last but not least, we want to extend our gratitude to members of the PDXWIT community whose collaboration helped make this programming possible. A heartfelt thank you to Zhou Fang for leading the development of our AAPI in Tech programming (in addition to moderating and emceeing!), to Anusha Neelam for co-emceeing, as well as to Deborah Kim and Linda Lee for designing this year’s graphics!
Before the month comes to a close, we want to amplify four more amazing AAPI women in tech:
Radhika Bhatt is a technologist, innovator, community builder, and public speaker who believes we can “solve big and small problems through collaboration and human-centered design.” She’s a passionate advocate for making tech a more inclusive place for underrepresented communities, and creating more inclusive tech by incorporating an intersectional feminist framework.
Tania Wolfgramm described herself in a 2019 interview with Women of Silicon Valley as a native technologist, storyteller, voyager, and a creative producer. As Executive Director of Global Reach Initiative & Development, she works in collaboration with Google Earth and Street View and Indigenous Pacific communities to preserve cultural treasures using virtual reality.
Tammy Kiaʻāina is an Engineering Technician who, in a recent interview with Intel, revealed that she “inherited a passion for tech from her grandfather.” She’s pursuing a degree at Oregon State in Computer Science with the hope to become an Engineer. When she’s not working or learning, she dedicates her time to inspire the next generation of Pacific Islanders to pursue STEM fields.
Michelle Lee is a self-described AI tech executive, board member, former CEO, and digital transformation strategist. She was formerly the Vice President of Amazon Web Services Machine Learning Solutions Lab. She’s described by a colleague as being someone who, “exercise[d] strong organizational influence through collaboration and data-driven decision making.”
Remember the celebration doesn’t stop here! Uplift and support the AAPI community all year long. And if you missed this month’s programming, you can watch it on demand on our YouTube channel.