Notorious for being distinctly male-dominated, the technology industry has witnessed an increasing number of women who have risen through the ranks and helped to shape its future. They not only direct successful tech-related businesses but make significant social impacts in society. On the occasion of Women In Tech week, let’s celebrate it with a great source of inspiration from these incredible women including two from Vietnam.  

• Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook, Inc. 

Sheryl is currently the COO of Facebook – the most active social platform worldwide with roughly 2.89 billion monthly active users. Since 2008 when taking over this position, Sheryl took full responsibility for marketing & communications strategies and has helped to dramatically increase this social media firm’s revenues. Undoubtedly, she is one of the most influential women not only in Silicon Valley but in the tech world where she has also held executive leadership positions of different billion-dollar tech companies such as Google, Microsoft.  

Crediting her career path as a great way to inspire women to get leadership roles in life, Sheryl Landberg is active in writing books & building the “Lean In” community – a global network dedicated to helping women achieve their ambitions. The book Lean In has been sold more than 2.25 million copies worldwide and the community itself is expected to encourage women to push back the status quo and lean in their careers, simultaneously encourages men to support that. 

(Pic 1: Sheryl Sandberg – COO Facebook, Inc. – Cre: world economic forum) 

• Whitney Wolfe Herd – Founder, CEO Bumble. 

(Pic 2: Whitney Wolfe Herd – Founder, CEO Bumble – Cre: on pic) 

Previously responsible for development at Tinder, Whitney then transitioned from Tinder to Bumble, where her past experience has given her the courage to do things differently. Bumble is the first-ever dating app that only women could make the first move when users match on the platform. Also, worthy of note is the fact that 85% of the company’s portfolio is females and this company has gained a reputation for its commitment to providing such a working environment for women to thrive in. 

The popularity of this dating app has exploded especially in the recent pandemic. Bumble is valued at more than $1 billion and more than 500 “first moves” are recorded in this app. Taking the company public has even made Whitney become the world’s first youngest self-made billionaire. 

• Erica Joy Baker – the one who worked behind the scenes at Slack and many more.

Erica Joy Baker is known as the one that stood behind the booming of Slack – a messaging app for businesses that connects people. This application is considered a highly valued business tool that top-notch tech companies even opt to pay for a premium subscription to use more upgraded features. 

(Pic 3: Erica Joy Baker – Former Senior Engineer at Slack – cre: lesbianswhotech) 

Not just only at Slack, throughout her career as a tech titan, she also joined several superb tech companies including GitHub, Google, Slack, Patreon & Microsoft, and always knew how to make herself indispensable at work.

Besides her career, Erica Joy Baker has also devoted herself to partaking in the movements to advocate diversity in workplaces and enhance the impacts of technology on human life. Even during the time working at Google, Erica left her mark on social media by revealing Google’s internal spreadsheet that highlights the unfair pay. 

• Văn Đinh Hồng Vũ – Founder, Elsa Speak.

ELSA Speak is an artificial intelligence-powered platform made by Van Dinh Hong Vu – a 1983-born Vietnamese and partners, a solution for the biggest difficulties for English learners: pronunciation & speaking skills. 

(Pic 4: Văn Đinh Hồng Vũ – Founder ELSA Speak – cre: Vietnambiz) 

The breakthrough innovation came from her true calling – making a real impact with education. She got the first move to leave Maersk where she was the 1st Asian to hold the position of Assistant General Manager and then decided to pursue MBA at Stanford University (USA), the time spent in the US did open up a new world to her: She admitted a bitter truth that Vietnamese normally got difficulty in overcoming language barriers and then wondered how to make use of technologies (such as AI- which made her fascinated) to help people learning English easier. That is the reason why ELSA Speak was born. 

Until now, ELSA Speak has attracted a few million users around the world and saw a great high demand in the Vietnam market. And Van Dinh Hong Vu has made several big steps closer to realize her ambition – every Vietnamese would get the ELSA Speak app on their smartphone. 

• Hà San – Founder, MindX (formerly known as Techkids) 

Born and raised in a small village in Hung Yen where her friends only finished high school and chose to do manual work like farming, San got such a privilege to get a good education owing to the family’s orientation. 

Pic 5: Nguyễn Thị Thu Hà – Co-founder, CEO MindX – cre: Vnexpress.net) 

Joining Foreign Trade University is definitely a chance for this girl to get access to technology industries and be involved in a myriad of projects in Asia, one of which is the Google Student Ambassador Program in South East Asia where she got to meet a lot of top-notch tech companies in the world. Since then, she started dreaming of building something big, not just for her but for even younger generations: a place where people could learn how to code & make impacts using technology. 

MindX was founded when Ha San met a group of like-minded friends, who then all became the founders of this Hanoi-based ed-tech startup, (a place) expected to be “A Little Silicon Valley”. The ecosystem includes schools for crucial skillsets of the 4.0 revolution such as programming, robotics, design, and 3D drawing besides providing such a space for co-working business. Currently, MindX has 5 centers in two big cities Hanoi & Ho Chi Minh City, training & coaching more than 8,500 students & adults. The module of this startup also attracted more than 200 domestic & international startups investment funds. 

The promising scenario of MindX has proven how far the vision of Ha San might be and how strong & ambitious she has been in her career no matter how young she is. 

Join Edso Labs in celebrating Women In Tech Week and the upcoming Vietnamese Women’s Day 20/10 by sharing this article as well as any inspirational stories from women around you. To any woman reading this piece, we want you all to feel proud of what you have accomplished in your careers, and keep up the good work! The world really needs you!