{"id":5808,"date":"2019-12-19T11:57:02","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T16:57:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adsknews.autodesk.com\/?post_type=views&p=5808"},"modified":"2019-12-19T11:57:02","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T16:57:02","slug":"afrotech-2019","status":"publish","type":"views","link":"https:\/\/adsknews.autodesk.com\/en\/views\/afrotech-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Advice from Autodeskers at Afrotech 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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L to R: Ebot\u00a0Ndip-Agbor,\u00a0Uchenna Okoye, Sheryl Walton, Erisa\u00a0Ojimba, and Omari Brandt.<\/p><\/div> In November, tech enthusiasts showed up at the Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco to hear Autodesk employees\u00a0share their experiences and advice around what it\u2019s like to work in tech, and what it really means to be part of #AutodeskLife<\/a>. The occasion was a larger event happening in the Bay Area\u2014AfroTech 2019<\/a>. AfroTech is a culture immersion in the form of an annual conference that garners global participation across the Black diaspora.\u00a0Held at Oakland Marriott\u2019s Convention Center, the fourth year saw an estimated 10,000 attendees over the course of the three-day conference. A variety of keynote speakers, like John Zimmer (co-founder & President of Lyft) and\u00a0Charlamagne\u00a0Tha\u00a0God (TV and media personality) were on hand to talk about Black representation in the tech community. <\/p>\n

Learn more<\/a> about Autodesk’s Diversity & Inclusion initiatives <\/div>\n

At the Autodesk Gallery, Ebot\u00a0Ndip-Agbor,\u00a0Erisa\u00a0Ojimba, Sheryl Walton and\u00a0Uchenna\u00a0Okoye\u00a0rounded out a four-person panel that was moderated by Autodesk Black Network (ABN) President, Omari Brandt. This was one in a series of\u00a0AfroTech\u00a02019 welcome events, and the first for Autodesk as a host. Engaging, real and oftentimes infectiously humorous, the panel opened up to the audience and spoke candidly about topics ranging from their management philosophy, advice to new entrants in the workforce, to\u00a0how\u00a0one can\u00a0elevate strengths while managing weaknesses in direct reports\u00a0or members on their team. One of the\u00a0night\u2019s\u00a0themes was clear – none of us achieve success in isolation, but rather, \u201cyou\u2019re only as good as your team,\u201d\u00a0Ebot\u00a0advised. Sheryl echoed this by saying that building relationships is a must, and that \u201ccollaboration is key.\u201d  

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Autodesk CMO joined the event with members of the Autodesk Black Network (ABN).<\/p><\/div> Another lesson that emerged from the panel had to do with ambiguity in one\u2019s career path\u2014it\u2019s okay to not to have a perfectly plotted-out plan for one\u2019s career path.\u00a0Uchenna\u00a0encouraged the group by saying \u201cyour career meanders, and that\u2019s okay.\u201d\u00a0Repeating this multiple times for full affect, he\u00a0followed this up by saying that meandering one\u2019s way through a career path \u201cwon\u2019t always feel good, but it\u2019s good.\u201d These were nuggets of wisdom this all-Black panel delivered to an audience of historically underrepresented groups in tech. Mostly Black and Brown, roughly half women, and a quarter or so recent grads, all were hungry to hear stories they could relate to, and that could motivate them personally and professionally. Erisa\u00a0responded to a question from the audience\u00a0on how to\u00a0land a job in a desired role. She cautioned that background in the function does not always equal success in that role, but rather doing \u201cwhat you\u2019re passionate about.\u201d She continued to say that time and introspection are also enablers for success, as are being open and flexible in one\u2019s career. This was our first time participating in the Afrotech conference, and we designed the evening to achieve two objectives – expose Autodesk to the\u00a0external Black\u00a0community, and\u00a0increase the number of Black engineers at Autodesk. \u00a0It was a cross-company collaboration between ABN, Autodesk\u2019s Diversity and Belonging team, and Autodesk CMO Lisa Campbell, who kicked off the event with remarks that diversity, inclusion and belonging are of critical importance to Autodesk because they lead to \u201cbetter results and a better atmosphere for our employees.\u201d The event left a profound impression on one attendee, who said,\u00a0\u201cThis has been my favorite chat\u201d out of the festivities that they had attended so far. \u00a0The surveys we collected at the end of the night\u00a0reinforced the positive impact the event had on participants,\u00a0with the overall satisfaction score\u00a0being\u00a09 out of 10. We look forward to hosting again at\u00a0AfroTech\u00a02020!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Autodesk employees\u00a0shared their experiences and advice around what it\u2019s like to work in tech, and what it really means to be part of #AutodeskLife.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":5809,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[29,295],"adsk_tags":[],"class_list":["post-5808","views","type-views","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","categories-our_company","categories-people_and_culture"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAdvice from Autodeskers at Afrotech 2019 | Autodesk News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/adsknews.autodesk.com\/en\/views\/afrotech-2019\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Advice from Autodeskers at Afrotech 2019\" \/>\n<meta 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