TAMPA — When Raechel Canipe started Women in Tech and Entrepreneurship she says it was very small group.
“We had all of ten women at our first meeting mostly friends of mine.”
The goal was to bring together women to support each other and network around Tampa.
“What I didn’t expect to happen was that women would start driving from Tallahassee and Orlando and Jacksonville and South Florida to come to our events here in Tampa because they didn’t have a free and accessible resource in the communities where they lived that specifically catered to women in tech and entrepreneurship," she said.
Now two years later, there are chapters across the state with more than 3000 women. About half are working in the tech industry. The other half are entrepreneurs who started their own businesses or plan to.
Amy Crosby had retired after 20 years in Silicon Valley and joined the group to mentor others.
“We have everything from technology start-ups, these amazing ideas that they are going out and building to more traditional roles. People that have law firms or agencies or just small business they start up. Health coaches. Things like that. It’s really all kinds of entrepreneurs," said Crosby.
Amy has since joined up with one of those entrepreneurs, Heather DePalma. Together they are building Profferfish, a tech platform connecting high school students with the community to earn volunteer hours needed for Bright Future scholarships.
“We wanted to make it more efficient for students. A lot of people use it on paper. And as we know our kids like to leave their papers on the bottom of the backpack. So it is now an online platform," said DePalma.
Profferfish is working to go statewide. Meanwhile, Women in Tech has its sights set on going national.
“I’m living proof that you don’t have to have a computer science degree. You can find your way into the industry and find success and we want to help more women do that," said Canipe.
When debris from a tractor struck their vehicle on I-75, Denise and Mike Brennan were told by a state contractor that "they will take care of it." Now, more than six months later, the Brennans are still $7000 out-of-pocket for repairs and rentals.
