Your time is Now – Lead. Inspire. Empower.

There has never been a better time for inclusion at Cisco. Starting this Sunday at Cisco Live Las Vegas, the Cisco Empowered Women’s Network (CEWN) — an employee run network participating for a fourth year — will host a series of events in support of women in technology. These events include a now sold-out main session, as well as panels, table topics and breakouts throughout the week. Customers and partners attending these sessions will get a chance to interact with like-minded peers and hear from thought leaders in IT, social entrepreneurship, academia and industry on this important issue.

Our theme this year – ‘Your time is Now – Lead. Inspire. Empower.’ – has never been more relevant. Statistics released by the National Council for Women in IT point to a 21% increase between 2000 and 2015 in the number of first-year undergraduate women interested in a Computer Science major. Certainly this trend is encouraging, but according to another report by the National Council for Women in IT, while women held 57% of all professional occupations in 2015, they represented only 25% of the computing occupations. And even fewer women are found in software development, technology leadership, or the other kinds of key roles that have a significant influence on future innovation. Clearly, there is a lot of work to be done to advance the role of women in technology.

Cisco leaders – both male and female – are committed to providing opportunities for training and mentorship to enable women to take ownership of their own career growth. The CWEN Cisco Live sessions will take customers on an inspiring journey, where attendees will find ways to reinvigorate their careers in technology (PNLGEN-2003), show them how to design their own CCIE boot camp (PSOCCIE-2000), as in various DevNet sessions learn new definitions of leadership, networking, innovation and success.

In the true spirit of giving back and paying it forward, CiscoEWN has announced a social media challenge this year, encouraging video submissions to nominate extraordinary individuals who have inspired and empowered us to implement change in our own lives. Stay tuned on our social media channels to find out who the winner of this challenge is and to gather insights from this year’s amazing event. You will be a part of a community that is over 3,000 strong and made up of men and women across the industry. The excitement continues throughout the year with our Virtual Series. Follow us on our social media channels to stay up to date with all our activities throughout the year.

Check out some of our other exciting activities:

‘Reinvigorate Your Career in Technology’ Panel on Monday 7/11 @1:30 pm.

Design Your Own CCIE Bootcamp on Tuesday, 7/12 @2:00 pm.

Even if you’re not able to attend #CLUS live, follow us on twitter, to see all the action virtually and see our live Facebook Live posts and Periscopes next week.

To learn more about the Cisco Empowered Women’s Network, join our group on LinkedIn, like our Facebook page, or tweet us with questions or comments on Twitter @CiscoEWN.