What WITI Means To Me

My name is Taliyaah Maryam. I am 13 years old, and I am an 8th grader at Blackstone Academy in Atlanta, Georgia. Today I wanted to bring awareness to an organization empowering women: WITI.

WITI is a beautiful women's empowerment website. WITI is also known for doing webinars, which allows them to spread information helping women to be independent in the world of technology.

The history of WITI is inspiring. The WITI Foundation started when a woman named Carolyn Leighton decided to find a way to have women help other women to advance in technology. There's a saying that is popular at my school: �"There is no better influence on the youth than other youth.” This is the same concept that I believe Carolyn Leighton was going for. If she had instead placed men to empower the women, I do not believe it would have had the same impact that a woman teaching women has had. Having a woman empower other women who are uneducated about technology allows the uneducated to believe it is possible.

I deeply appreciate Carolyn Leighton for creating this organization, all the way back in 1989. I believe she was incredibly ahead of her time, especially for something as advanced as technology for women. Even though sexism in this field has lifted a lot since 1989, there are still subtle assumptions that women could not really do something as hard as technology, or anything science and math related.

In conclusion, I believe this website, this organization, and the people who are a part of it have a lot of value to the empowerment of women. I would also like to thank David Leighton for giving me this opportunity to express my admiration, and I hope I can help WITI further on in the future.

Opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of WITI.