Our Social Impact Report – another year in the bag- we did it!

Written by: on October 23, 2022
Tags: InnovateHer Updates, Thought Piece

In 2 weeks, I will have been with the InnovateHer team for one whole year 😲. It’s wild. It feels like so much longer. We’ve done so much but changed how we work so much in that time too.

Coming from a larger organisation to a much smaller team means we all get to have a bigger voice, share our experience and learn faster from each other and the work we do. When a small business enters a time of scaling, dynamics change, structures and processes get rejigged, and adapting is crucial. But this team take it in their stride, and I couldn’t be more excited to share our impact from this past year. 

Launching 2 new services for schools, revamping our e-Learning content, delivering a series of workshops for partners and students, attending careers days across the North West, and growing the team to double its size! We’ve been finding our groove through all this, alongside figuring out what schools and students need after the pandemic, so our work with industry creates the change they need. 

Safe to say 2021/22 has been busy, so we’re going to take a moment to celebrate. 

We worked with over 4,000 students in the past year, inspiring them to take their skills and interests and explore how they could fit in the tech industry. We educate them on the careers they could have one day and showcase women in history who have blazed the path into tech for them. 

Every chance we get to see our community brings us so much connection and learning which we want to take forward into 2022/23.

Sabrina Moshin

After an extended time where all our activity was virtual only, though we remain a digital-first organisation, we started to sprinkle in that face-to-face connection over the last year. The InnovateHer team has been to various schools, businesses, events, and even on the BBC, spreading the word of our mission. We have spoken to over 275,000 people this year, promoting equity, diversity and inclusion in the sector and about how representation improves tech solutions for everyone. 

In the past year, the challenges our communities have faced have grown. More students will go to school hungry in the next year or colder because schools and homes can’t put the heating on as much. Due to the looming recession, we’ve seen mass redundancies within the tech industry. While we don’t yet know what impact this will have on the diversity of the industry, we know we can’t allow Tech to defund EDI initiatives and risk reversing the last few years’ progress. We are committed to keeping the fire behind our mission burning and facilitating real change in the tech industry so no one can say they were the only woman in the room. 

To my InnovateHer team, I want to say thank you for everything you’ve taught me in the past year, for the questions asked, the answers given, the curiosity for trial and error and most importantly, for the ambition you’re all going into 2023 with.

We want more of you to join us on this journey and keep pushing for progress. Read what we achieved in the past year in our Social Impact Report, and get in touch to see how you can work with us to ensure we move towards a fair and equitable industry.