From Educators to End Users: Leveraging Holistic Approaches and the Importance of Belonging Across the Tech Ecosystem

Join us for our first 2022 webinar of the Making Our Strong Community, Stronger collaborative initiative on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the mainframe industry. Register here.

We’re mixing up the conversation by sharing the perspective of IBM Z educators and end users. In keeping with our previous discussions, we are continuing our bold, open and honest dialog related to the experiences, challenges, and solutions to navigating DEI. But this time around, we’re bringing in one new, important factor—belonging—making our key initiative diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEI-B).

In previous sessions throughout the year, we’ve discussed the importance of telling our stories and creating a climate for success for everyone. We are shifting to demystify the challenges of isolation and loneliness that can occur when programs, training, support and other components of the ecosystem may not provide the holistic access, partnerships, and opportunities that unlock real belonging and potential for people, teams, and companies.

Some organizations create well-intended approaches to provide help, however, these noble attempts can feel like a one and done mentality, meant to do good, while possibly further isolating the very individuals who are meant to benefit. DEI-B is not a one-time initiative—it’s a lifetime of educating and listening to everyone in the company to improve. Organizations need to match what’s happening societally to reflect, hear and understand everyone’s values and needs in order to progress. This is not a one-time initiative, project or task.

You’ll notice that the panelists for this webinar include end users and educational professionals—and that’s no coincidence. From vendors to end users and partners that use IBM Z—there are more perspectives and personalities than you’d expect within the technology ecosystem. This breadth of perspectives makes it more important than ever to build, support and maintain holistic, effective approaches that will make the ecosystem stronger working for everyone.

Join our panel discussion on February 23, 2022, at 9:00 a.m. PDT // 12:00 p.m. EDT.

Panelists include:

• Dr. Gina Bullock, Assistant Professor, North Carolina A&T State University
• Chinedu Ibeh, Corporate Vice President, Enterprise Compute Services, New York Life
• Byron Smith, Senior Mainframe Security Engineer, Systems Technology Banking Officer, M&T Bank
• Nicole Nwakalor, Specialist, Systems Engineering, Infrastructure, Operations and Cloud, Charles Schwab
• Moderator: Dr. Gloria Chance, president and CEO, Mousai Group

We are also pleased to host a unique event after the webinar for attendees only: Dr. Gloria Chance, our webinar moderator, will hold a private Town Hall on February 24 at 9:00 a.m. PDT // 12:00 p.m. EDT for attendees to join the conversation, bringing their own experiences and questions into this growing DEI-B community.

Sponsored by Broadcom Mainframe Software, IBM, Open Mainframe Project, Rocket Software, TechChannel and VirtualZ Computing. 

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