On Friday 6 March, Women In Tech (WIT) Sweden hosted their annual conference at Waterfront. The conference saw more than 2000 people attend and the tickets were gone within minutes of release. Kindred, one of the proud main sponsors of the event, had a well-visited booth centrally located on the premises and hosted one of the breakout sessions after lunch.
Kindred employee Veronica Björksten is a veteran attendee at WIT Stockholm and this year was no exception. She was one of the 33 Kindred employees who manned the Kindred booth during the event.
“It was a very busy day!” says Veronica. “We had a really good location, so many people came to visit us. We even had to spread ourselves out outside the booth to be able to talk to everyone! People were curious about what Kindred does, with many people being interested in recruitment. This is an amazing forum for recruiting women into our company. It's the perfect place for networking, reaching women in the industry or students.
Friday's conference was the fifth for Veronica, and the second time she assisted in the Kindred booth: “It just keeps growing. Last year the conference held 1 000 people; this year it moved to Waterfront to accommodate 2100 and it was absolutely full. The tickets went in 3 minutes and the event had record-breaking stream numbers, with more than 1000 tuning in. There is definitely an interest in WIT events and they will continue scaling up.”
Gender equality is a shared responsibility
Veronica says the WIT conference is important because it attracts both, women who are already in the industry and those who want to enter it. “We motivate each other and get reminded of how important creating an inclusive working environment is. One thing that I’m very proud of, is that I had two male members of my team join to support. This event is aimed at women in tech, but I think both men and women should be equally heard. Creating an environment of inclusivity is a shared responsibility: we all play an important role in this.
Technology is the future for all genders
Attending Women in Tech is a great way for Kindred to show the opportunities we have available in Stockholm. “The conference attracts a wide variety of people and doesn’t only focus on tech-specific topics,” says Veronica. “We also talk about the tech industry and the different opportunities it provides. We motivate each other to chase these opportunities, no matter the background we come from. The future is in tech and we need to work hard to educate people, pass on the knowledge and empower them.”
Kindred talent acquisition partner Claire Skorupa agrees and says it's important for Kindred to be at such events to promote our brand and show all the latest technology we are implementing.
“We also want to promote diversity and inclusion, which is one of Kindred’s main sustainability objectives,” says Claire. “Our ambition is to achieve an even gender split at our executive management level by 2023. Attending and supporting such events is key in achieving this. This also aligns with the WIT meetup Kindred hosted earlier this year, inviting over 100 women from the Stockholm tech community to attend our Stockholm office. This was a very good platform for us to talk about our culture, our values and the Kindred story. Many were very surprised that Kindred, as a gambling company, is guided by values of trust and innovation. I always make sure to highlight the work we do towards our sustainability commitments.”
Claire says the conference was a huge success for Kindred: “People were very curious about who we are, and we got a very positive response from visitors when we talked about our technological achievements. Attending the event was a very nice experience and so was networking with new people, and the people we've previously met at our WIT meetup. It's also good to have a chance to interact more with our own colleagues. Our Stockholm office is very big, and it can be hard to find the time to collaborate with everyone. We were all very involved in this event and are now thinking about how we can improve for next time. This way, We Seek To Innovate and always challenge ourselves to do better.”
Kindred also hosted a breakout session which was fully booked long before the event took place. Violeta Stegaru, Test Automation Developer at Kindred Group focused on Building Trust Through Active Monitoring. During the session, Violeta presented the benefits of active production monitoring and how the methodology can help understand customers´ experience, determine areas of improvements and how to collect data to identify issues in the system early on before customers decide to contact customer support.
Overall, the session was a huge success: Kindred is proud to be a sponsor of WIT and will continue to encourage industry dialogues in the future, pushing beyond boundaries.
