Leader in Digital Video Advertising Spearheads Movement to Diversify IT Jobs Within Industry
DENVER – SpotXchange, Inc., the largest global marketplace of digital video ad inventory, today announced that it is the first startup to be selected by the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) into the 2013 NCWIT Pacesetters program. This bold program aims to increase women’s meaningful participation in technology in a quantifiable way, through the accelerated recruitment and retention of women. Some of the current Pacesetter members include Intel, IBM, Microsoft, Carnegie Mellon and Virginia Tech.
“In a generally male dominated technology industry, women’s voices play a vital role in helping companies innovate and create the products and services that we all use today,” said Brad Feld, chairman of NCWIT. “As a Coloradoan, it makes me proud to see SpotXchange leading the charge and addressing the women in technology issue head on.”
Efforts to increase women’s participation in technology have existed for decades, while women’s presence in boardrooms, classrooms and labs has stagnated or declined. Launched in 2009, Pacesetters is a cohort of organizations, universities and colleges that collaborate and set an aggressive pace for building and diversifying the nation’s computing pipeline. The NCWIT Pacesetters program deploys an approach that aims to “move the needle,” both within organizations and on a national scale through quantifiable ways.
“Increasing the number of women in technology helps bring an entirely new level of ideas, collaboration andinnovation our country requires to accelerate the development and advancement of new technologies,” said Mike Shehan, CEO of SpotXchange. “We are honored to be selected as the first startup in the Pacesetters program and working with NCWIT, we areexcited to help attract, shape and grow the tech talent pool locally and nationally.”
SpotXchange is also helping encourage women to enter into computing careers by being the first startup to participate in the Sit With Me advocacy campaign. Sit With Me seeks to raise the visibility of technical women and an iconic Red Chair symbolizes that women in technology need more seats at the table. The Red Chair was prominently featured during SpotXchange’s annual year-end meeting where SpotXchange employees helped to promote and drive awareness.
“The Pacesetters program is like a personal trainer for an organization,” said Lucy Sanders, co-founder and CEO of NCWIT. “We work with organizations to help identify areas where they can improve diversification of their IT departments and emphasize areas that are working. While we typically work with large organizations, it is great to see such an entrepreneurial company like SpotXchange helping to lead the charge by bringing more technical women into the workforce. Building this foundation now is a testament to the entire executive team at SpotXchange.”
About SpotXchange
With more than 400 million auctions per day, SpotXchange is the largest global marketplace of video ad inventory reaching 110 million unique visitors in more than 40 countries each month. The leader in video real-time bidding, SpotXchange connects thousands of online publishers withadvertisers, agencies, trading desks and ad networks running top brand campaigns through its IAB-certified marketplace. SpotXchange shows premium publishers and more than 400 world class advertisers that there is a better way to buy and sell digital video — with solutions that guarantee total transparency, control, and the best targeting and real-time optimization tools available in a premium video exchange environment.
About NCWIT
The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) is a non-profit community of change leaders working to increase women’s participation in computing and technology. NCWIT helps organizations more effectively recruit, retain, and advance girls andwomen in K-12 through college education, and from academic to corporate andstartup careers. NCWIT was established in 2004 with funding from the NationalScience Foundation and is supported by Microsoft, Bank of America, Avaya, Pfizer, Merck, Turner, AT&T, EMC, Google, Motorola, Qualcomm, Intel, HP, Symantec, and more than 300 university, corporate, non-profit, and government member organizations nationwide. Find out more at http://www.ncwit.org.
