Wonder Women Tech Special Programs

Who is Wonder Women Tech?

Wonder Women Tech is a global ecosystem which highlights, celebrates and educates women and the underrepresented in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) industries. Lisa Mae Brunson launched the first Wonder Women Tech conference in Los Angeles, CA in 2015 with support from the City of Los Angeles and its Mayor, Eric Garcetti, and the Commission on the Status of Women. The City of LA donated the historic airplane hangar once owned by Howard Hughes where the infamous Spruce Goose was built.

What began as a "one off" event quickly spawned a magical journey for Lisa Mae. Despite having little to no budget, women and men were signing up to be part of the conference and Lisa Mae was inspired by the stories she discovered from people who declared the need for the Wonder Women Tech vision. It was then that Lisa Mae committed herself to building and expanding WWT.

Wonder Women Tech launched with 1000 attendees in its first year. 100 children were taught how to code in the first Junior Innovation Camp, and hackers participated in the Wonder Women Hacks hackathon right inside the conference. It was an inspiring event and Lisa Mae quickly had to learn how to scale the vision and begin building the Wonder Women Tech Foundation.

Shortly after the first conference, Lisa Mae was invited to meet with the City of Long Beach and its Mayor, Robert Garcia. In an unprecendented move, the Mayor of Long Beach committed to the growth of WWT and donated the Long Beach Convention Center as a venue to continue to build a conference for women and the underrepresented in tech.

Lisa Mae began forging relationships with other government entities, Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, organizations, startups and community members in an effort to bring everyone to the table to build solutions, provide career development and job opportunities, and engage in meaningful programming.

Each partnership has opened doors for new partnerships, and Lisa Mae bridged the gap between women in tech, social innovation, economic development and accessible programming. London called, and WWT was hosted by the Minsitry of Justice, one of the largest goverment entities in the UK, and Expedia Inc., and partnered with Innovate UK among others.

The Hard Truth:

WWT is grateful to have benefited from amazing partnerships and historic opportunities, however all that glitters is not gold. Each year, WWT has failed to meet its funding goals due to lack of actual financial sponsorship commitments. While our partnerships and sponsorships have been wonderful, Lisa Mae quickly discovered the challenges of having to "prove herself and the WWT concept" to companies. It is noted that, had Lisa Mae been a white male launching a tech conference, she would not have faced as many challenges.

Over half of our booths each year were provided complimentary to companies and organizations. Many companies responded with: "Maybe next year" but then would ask for a free booth or ticket. We honored their requests in an effort to build our platform. Three years of bootstrapping has literally left Lisa Mae and the WWT depleted as each year the team has had to compile resources, human capital, and sweat equity to keep Wonder Women Tech alive.

Lisa Mae has downsized twice in the last 18 months and has decided to go "all in" one last time to keep the global vision of WWT alive. Currently, everything she now owns sits in a 10x10 storage unit as she focuses on building a powerful 2018 year for Wonder Women Tech in an effort to create a sustainable vision for her team and the ecosystem.

SUPPORT OUR VISION AND CO-CREATE A GLOBAL PLATFORM TO HIGHLIGHT EDUCATE AND CELEBRATE WOMEN AND THE UNDERREPRESENTED IN STEAM!

The Wonder Women Tech Impact:

To date, we have engaged close to 10,000 attendees across all WWT events since 2015.

We have provided Free Junior Innovation STEAM camps and Wonder Girls Camps to 430 underserved kids across US and UK.

We have provided Free Senior STEAM camps in 2016 and 2017 to over 80 seniors citizens.

We have engaged close to 1000 attendees seeking jobs in 2017 and we expect to more than triple that number in 2018!

We had over 10k Facebook Live views on our Deaf Programming and have cultivated a special Deaf audience. We are also creating a partnership with one of the largest Deaf Communications companies to provide our ASL interpreting services for 2018.

85% of Wonder Women Tech conference tickets were given away for free.

ALL Seniors, Military Vets, Deaf, Disabled, and low-income attendees were provided free tickets and access to free STEAM camps.

All Career Fair attendees are provided free access to the career fair and career development workshops.

Grassroots Efforts = Global Impact:

To date, over 150,000 emails have gone out to build WWT partnerships. Over 50k of those emails were sent out by Lisa Mae personally. All efforts to scale have been grassroots, and Lisa Mae and her team have worked literally around the clock to build Wonder Women Tech. The amount of time and effort it takes to launch and grow from trial and error has been monumental.

Help us keep the fires burning and be part of our magical adventure!

Lisa Mae has reached out to just about every girl in tech organization out there. She has worked to make connections with community members in each city, and has leveraged her ability to create unique partnerships and opportunities. Through her Art of Fearless Asking, she has managed to co-create a strong and beautiful brand and take WWT global with little to no budget.

There are great plans for the future and we intend to go further than ever! We would love your support so that we can scale further and faster.

Passion Is Everything:

In April 2017 Lisa Mae suffered a brain injury from fainting on the airplane to the WWT London conference. She had been working around the clock and she suffered extreme exhaustion. Nevertheless, she ran the conference WITH a concussion, and is currently still in recovery from a Post Concussive Syndrome condition. 

In 2016 she was in a car accident two days before the Long Beach conference, and was conducting meetings from her hospital bed. She said she wasn't going to let anything or anyone stop her from making magic happen!

Brianna Machado and Kenneth Sarino who have both been with WWT since its inception, were working DURING Hurricane Irma. Kenneth still hasn't been able to return to his home as it was damaged in the storms. Brianna had to evacuate twice, and was working on the Long Beach conference to "distract her from the chaos."

Collectively, the WWT team and its ecosystem of helpers have experienced over 10 deaths, numerous hospital stays, two robberies at gunpoint, and the kinds of challenges that would have felled even the greatest champion. (Seriously, we cannot make this stuff up!)

Yet, the team has pressed on in an effort to see our impact take shape and witness the countless lives we intend to change on this journey.

We have survived on very little and have relied almost exclusively on the very little financial sponsorship dollars that have come from corporate companies. This year we have filed as a nonprofit and are a state nonprofit and are currently awaiting our 501c3 status any day. This will allow us to go after the grant funding we need to thrive and build even larger programs!

We need YOUR support!

Wonder Women Tech has a strong mission and 2018 will be our banner year. We are putting our faith in a crowdfunding effort to raise funds to supplement our efforts to continue to provide free and accessible programming. Each year it costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce WWT conferences. We cannot continue to bootstrap and survive on human capital.

Please help us continue to keep the vision of WWT alive as we set our cap to thrive in 2018!

Our initial fundraising goal will help us meet the production needs for our next event held in Washington D.C. Any funds raised outside of that goal will go directly to building out our accessible programming for our STEAM camps and will provide us the ability to continue to provide free tickets to those who seek scholarships and assistance to attend.

Our 2018 conference lineup includes: (Not including our WWT talks events)

January 26th, 2018 Wonder Women Tech Global Summit in Washington, D.C. at the Ronald Reagan Building sponsored by the Office of Trade and Promotion.

June 15th, 2018 Wonder Women Tech London Conference, in London, UK at Plexal Innovation Centre.

Oct 5th and 6th, 2018 Wonder Women Tech National Conference in Long Beach, CA at the Long Beach Convention Center.

In talks for a December 2018 conference in another country TBA!

Help us reach our goals to continue to highlight, celebrate and educate women and the underrepresented in STEAM industries. Together, we can truly make a global impact and provide a more diverse and inclusive environment for all!

For more information on our magic visit: www.wonderwomentech.com