Local advocates are inviting women entrepreneurs in the Pittsburgh area to attend the region’s first-ever Women’s Entrepreneurship Day Organization (WEDO) summit later this month.
The local chapter of the national org will host a conference on Nov. 19, the globally recognized Women’s Entrepreneurship Day.
“It’s rooms like this that can pull that entrepreneurial spirit out and change a woman’s thought process.”
Olivia Suchko, Shop Olive and WEDO
The event is for any woman interested in entrepreneurship, as well as startup founders, business owners and male allies, according to Kate Gallo, a lead organizer for the event and a community and research manager at the startup development nonprofit InnovatePGH.
“I would love for [the event] to be a space where women feel safe to have conversations they have not felt like they had an outlet for in other rooms and other networking events,” Gallo told Technical.ly.
The event will be hosted at Carnegie Mellon University’s Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, featuring talks from accomplished startup founders, industry experts and leaders of local business-support organizations.
Attendees will also get a sneak peek at plans for 2027 programming and partnerships.
Bringing a global mission to Pittsburgh
WEDO’s Pittsburgh chapter is part of a larger global nonprofit entity founded by social-impact investor and entrepreneur Wendy Diamond in 2013, after she saw firsthand the positive impact female entrepreneurship had on women in Honduras.
“When a woman is an entrepreneur, it’s not just to better themselves — they have an economic impact on their family and their community,” Lindsay Fairman, Pittsburgh’s ambassador for WEDO, said.
Fairman, who is the managing partner at Pittsburgh-based venture firm BlueTree VC, met Diamond last summer and was encouraged to start a chapter in Pittsburgh.
While Women’s Entrepreneurship Day is celebrated in more than 140 countries by local WEDOs, the US has far fewer chapters than developing countries, Fairman said.
WEDO Pittsburgh officially launched in March at an event hosted by jewelry brand Kendra Scott at the Ross Park Mall.
“There’s not another community that I’m aware of where you have traditional brick-and-mortar, service-based, trades and tech [business owners] all coming together,” Fairman said. “At the end of the day, we’re all experiencing many of the same challenges.”
Systemic barriers, like funding gaps and a lack of representation, make women think they can’t be an entrepreneur, even if they have a great idea, according to WEDO board member Olivia Suchko. WEDO Pittsburgh wants to change that.
“It’s rooms like this that can pull that entrepreneurial spirit out,” Suchko, who is also the founder of fashion tech startup Shop Olive, said, “and change a woman’s thought process.”
Women work for a more inclusive tech ecosystem
As companies pull back on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, organizations supporting women in tech are feeling the effects.
DEI has become a “dirty word” in recent years, according to Jordan Marinkovich, co-president of Pittsburgh’s getWITit chapter, a national community for women in tech.
“A lot of companies have done away with their DEI policies,” Marinkovich told Technical.ly. “At getWITit, we’ve seen the cuts in sponsorships.”
Sponsors like BNY and Highmark have continued to back the local chapter, Marinkovich said, but the tech industry as a whole still has some catching up to do.
Women make up approximately 47% of the US workforce but only 28% of computer and mathematical roles, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
There’s also a persistent pay disparity between women and their male coworkers.
Women in STEM earn roughly 74% of what their male counterparts earn, with the median annual salary being $90,000 for a man and $66,200 for a woman. The gender pay gap in STEM is wider than the broader labor market, according to the Pew Research Center.
At the current rate of change, it will take more than 120 years to close the economic gender gap, according to the nonprofit advocacy organization Women in Tech Network.
GetWITit Pittsburgh aims to address some of these issues through its annual conference WITCON, which was hosted at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center last week.
The conference offered attendees technical updates on the industry, as well as personal stories from women who have had to navigate their careers through abusive relationships, having children or health changes.
“One of the most powerful things about WITCON, and getWITit in general, is that these women senior leaders open up doors for the younger community here, helping them find jobs in their community,” Marinkovich said. “They are great references and mentors, and it’s really beautiful to see those relationships blossom.”
