It’s International Women’s Day this week, and this has coincided with the closure of the original femedtech account on Twitter. Looking back at my engagement over a number of years made me pause and reflect on how I can now continue championing equality and how this shows up in my work.
Leadership
One of the things I gained during my years as a CEO was a bigger perspective, and a focus on the systems and structures that shape the way we work as individuals and organisations. I focused on promoting equity and equality not just in my own organisation, but in the sector I worked in, and used my voice to amplify issues such as the gender pay gap, lack of career progression opportunities and awareness of diversity, inclusion and equity in a wider context.
All those things continue to inform my work, and if anything I am now more able to be part of grass roots activities that focus on positive change as social and political shifts increase pressure.
I have hope, I have my voice and I continue to work away in my sphere of influence to affect the change I want to see. Although the world in general, and my small world specifically, have moved on a lot since the beginning of the #femedtech activities, the values that are at the heart of the project, for me at least, remain true. To me, it continues to be a powerful reminder, equality matters for everyone.
Ethical and open practice
One of the things I became very interested in over the past fifteen years is how to have an ethical, open approach to practice in leadership roles. I used this topic as a focus when I gained my Senior CMALT accreditation, and I continue to focus on this in my professional development as a coach.
Working with leaders from across different sectors has helped me realise how much we all have in common when it comes to the struggles of being an open leader and as a coach I help my clients see those shifts in perspective that enable them to move forward with their work in an authentic and meaningful way.
Pro bono work and volunteering
Even though I now run my own micro business instead of having a more dependable “day job” I continue to do work on a pro bono basis, offering for example free coaching packages and places on my courses, and I continue to volunteer as for example a mentor for school students and emerging leaders at the start of their career.
To celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8th, and I am busy writing letters to celebrate and thank all the inspirational women in my life!
This year’s theme is Accelerate Action, and I am offering three pro bono coaching packages to contribute something to this effort. So if you are looking to progress an action, take a decision or make change happen, then get in touch if you’d like to work with me.
As I am reading this I am wondering if such comparatively small actions can make a difference. I worry about whether I do enough and how I could do more. No, offering some free coaching to charity leaders or Higher Ed researchers won’t change the world, but it does make a difference. All of us do, in innumerable small ways. There’s hope in these small acts and for me that is the legacy of my femedtech years. Hope is a practice. And I am doing it.
Looking back at my #FemEdTech Years
For nearly a decade the #femedtech community has been a big part of my professional world. For many years I was one of the volunteers who curated the social media feed for a month a year, and helped with some of the work behind the scenes. It takes a lot of work to sustain a community and I deeply appreciate having had the opportunity to be an active part of this particular network, bringing together so many of my interests and value.
Posts from my stints as a volunteer curator
- 2023: Handing over lead curation
- 2022 care and curation
- 2021 still in pandemic times
- 2020 during the early days of lockdown
- 2019 my second time as a guest curator
- 2018 when I first volunteered
The connections I made during those years sustained much of the momentum during years of global crisis in 2020 and 2021, and all that has happened since then. In many ways this community was a frontrunner of the distributed, federated conversations we are now trying to sustain across networks. It showed just how much care it takes to weave together a (literal and figurative) quilt, to bring together voices that speak for equity and social justice and to amplify those values across the open web.
I’d encourage to to explore (or revisit) what’s been published on the FemEdTech Open Space and be inspired by the thoughts shared there: reflecting on collective voices, claiming open education as a feminist space, a pedagogy of care and… the moment at which many of us were able to meet the FemEdTech Quilt in person for the first time. Head over to Flickr to see the photos from the event and read more about this wonderful project in the blog post.
Thank you to each and every one who took part in all the inspiring and empowering #femedtech activities since 2016. It’s been a privilege to be part of the community.