Professional women worldwide will have access to LIFT (Learning and Intelligence For Tomorrow) on March 8th 2021, a new educational and networking platform.
LIFT is an innovative learning and intelligence hub for women to collaborate and hone their professional and technical skills and personal power to advance in the business world, being launched by The international Smart Advancing Women (iSAW) organisation to coincide with International Women’s Day.
Powered by Unily, a leading enterprise digital workplace provider, LIFT will leverage the power of technology to challenge the gender parity timeline and accelerate pioneering, impactful change.
Gender parity
According to the World Economic Forum, we will not see gender parity in our lifetimes, with estimates showing it will be on average another 99.5 years, and for some countries over 200 years.
Not accepting these figures, its founders Nancy Speidel, Ebtehal Alrewaily and Lynn O’Connor, created iSAW to accelerate gender equality worldwide and bring this number down.
Working with Unily, iSAW has developed the LIFT platform to unite women worldwide to build on female empowerment, professionalism, and personal growth, using technology as a vehicle for supporting enterprises and individuals to overcome gender disparity in the workplace.
iSAW will use Unily’s next-generation targeting features to give LIFT members access to the specific knowledge and expertise they need to make a difference in their communities.
The tech also enables LIFT to target members’ professional interests, providing interactive access to international thought leaders, subject matter experts and global networks to enhance their careers and raise awareness on gender parity opportunities across the globe.
LIFT will complement local and global events and workshops held by iSAW to engage with its international audience.
“I choose to challenge that gender equality will not be achieved within 100 years,” asserts Nancy Speidel, iSAW Founder and CEO. “We all know the power of technology can change the world. iSAW is excited to be partnering with Unily to launch our LIFT platform, bringing the full force of Unily’s award-winning digital technology, converted to multiple languages, to address gender inequality in the workplace in a way never done before.”
A welcomed LIFT
There are three components to iSAW’s offering: local, international and virtual, which is LIFT – easily described as a social media platform on steroids or one that has done a 360 as it focuses on how professional women learn, consume and connect with like-minded individuals.
LIFT aims to strengthen the position of women globally as a strategic talent pool and enhances individuals’ careers by providing awareness on gender equality at a local, regional, and global level; arming members with the latest business knowledge in their industry and function; building their personal power and creating an expansive international network for women to succeed in a brave new world and bold new way.
- iSAW members will enhance their professional and personal power through interactions with each other and thought leaders, primarily via LIFT, nurturing a local and international iSAW community.
- Data analysis, insights underpin the learning experience, and benchmarks to highlight what ‘good looks like’ in gender equality, to shine a light on those organisations which excel, and illuminate the path to take for those wishing to improve.
- All members are driven by a values-based culture of constant striving to learn, lead and lift others.
“We are both proud and excited to be fuelling such a powerful platform,” says Joanne Skilton, CCO at Unily.
“It is hard to believe that gender equality in the workplace is still an issue in 2021. We are honoured to be supporting iSAW, LIFT, in its pursuit of eradicating inequality and celebrating women globally. Technology can be a powerful tool when it comes to accelerating change and making a real difference.
“At Unily, we’ve seen it happen across the organisations and enterprises we work with, and now we see it in a different use case altogether. It’s exciting to see the full potential of our platform being unleashed and put to life-changing use.”
Driven by experts
Nancy Speidel is a senior leader in Information Technology, while co-founders Ebtehal Alrewaily and Lynn O’Connor are an international scholarship recipient with a masters in Physic and a diversity and inclusion director, respectively. Their areas of expertise have created an innovative digital solution in iSAW to expedite gender equality.
The iSAW Foundation chair is Martin Elliot, VP of Information Technology and a champion for gender equality, who also brings a wealth of technology experience.
iSAW is currently working with nine Universities and over 300 students to support its efforts and create content for its GRID – Gender Research Insights Database. If you would like to learn more about iSAW’s services and how you can become a member, please visit https://isaw.org/.
