Birthday Celebration | Year In Review

Dear WIT@UCSF Community, 

January marks the fresh start of a new year, and this was never met with as much enthusiasm as the start of 2021. Challenging as it was, 2020 inspired us to meet it with creative adaptations where we developed new opportunities to continue bringing our WIT@UCSF community together. We are so thankful for how open you all have been to trying these new innovations out. We've compiled a pleasant stroll down memory lane reviewing what we achieved together as WIT@UCSF celebrates its 2nd birthday. 

Cheers and Power On!

WIT@UCSF Leadership Team
Ana Buenaventura, Kat Li, Sarah Ngo, Suria Sadat, & Alyssa Tecklenburg

Happy 2nd Birthday, WIT@UCSF!

Can you believe WIT@UCSF launched 2 years ago this month? In place of our usual in-person celebration, we’ve recorded a very special birthday message and song with a group of WIT@UCSF members. Thank you to Stephanie Yee, the creative force behind this video, and to all our participants who shared their time and beautiful voices. Enjoy!  

From top, left to right: Ana Buenaventura, Rosemary Yau, Nancy Buenaventura, Jhinuk Barman, Jennifer Lee, Michelle Cai, Natalia Loaiza, Leslie Kleinberg, Stephanie Yee

Our Year In Review

What a year it's been! We summed up our year in an infographic to show you all that we've accomplished together. Read on for more details about our past year together.

We adapted our events

Tech Caf é
2020 forced us to rethink a lot of things. For WIT@UCSF, that was how we deliver our events and connect with each other. Early in the year, we launched a learning series called Tech Café, which compressed the content down to 30 minutes in a casual format that could fit into people’s day more easily. We started with tips and tricks for technology in a virtual setting and have expanded to lots of other topics from social media to visualizing data. Thanks to members Claudia Bedolla and Chantilly Apollon for each leading a Tech Café! We are excited to continue this series into 2021 because of the positive response. 

WITworking Coffee Chats
Another innovation was our WITworking Coffee Chat initiative, a networking event where we matched participants and leaders either by interest or randomly based on their choosing. Without the chance to mingle after events, our goal was to create another venue for meaningful connection within the community. The reviews were overwhelmingly positive, and we even heard of one group that is continuing to meet! Thank you to our volunteer leaders for coordinating the coffee chats.

We expanded our partnerships

Women of UCSF Health 
With all the stress of the pandemic and the weight of the reckoning with systemic racism, the need for resilience was strong. In partnership with Women of UCSF Health, we brought you two powerful workshops on building resilience in yourself and on your teams, led by our very own WIT@UCSF member Shannon Weber. 

UC WIT Committee 
In partnership with the other Women in Tech groups at all UC campuses, we collaborated on ideas and events for UC Tech and other UC-wide initiatives. 

We became an RCO!

In 2020, WIT@UCSF officially became a registered Registered Campus Organization (RCO)! That means get a small budget and are recognized as a community resource on campus. If you received a WIT@UCSF screen cleaner, it was thanks to being an RCO! 

What we will carry forward

Happy New Year everyone! May 2021 be a brighter year and bring you good health, peace, and (eventually) haircuts, parties, happy hours and get-togethers. 2021 is going to be an adventure, and here's to making our way through it together. 

Power On!