Women in Technology International

Women in Technology International (WITI) is a worldwide organization dedicated to the advancement of women in business and technology. It was established in 1989 by Carolyn Leighton as an email-based information network business.

Leighton founded WITI in 1989 as a worldwide e-mail network for women in all technology sectors—the first of its kind in the United States. 2009 will mark the 20th Anniversary of WITI's establishment. At the time WITI was founded, Leighton was President of Criterion Research, a research consulting firm for the high-tech industry based in California, which she founded in 1984. She was also chair of the Core Competency Database Project at Stanford University.

WITI has grown from a primarily U.S. based networking group to a leading worldwide organization dedicated to empowering women worldwide to achieve unimagined possibilities and transformations through technology, leadership and economic prosperity.

Founded in 1989 and based in California, WITI rapidly became the leading organization in the U.S.A., and then the world for women in technology. WITI's mission was to increase the number of women in management and executive level positions, to help women become more technologically literate as well as financially independent and to encourage young women to choose careers in science and technology.

At the time of WITI's founding, Leighton was building her third and most successful company, Criterion Research, which she started in 1984. She vividly remembers the day the idea for WITI was born. "I was sitting in a coffee shop waiting for a colleague and friend, Terry, who was also building a small company. We had become friends and met regularly to help each other with business ideas, etc. While I waited for Terry—who was running about 30 minutes late—I started reading the cover story of a business magazine I'd brought with me. The story was about why women were not making it to the top, reporting that there was a mere 2% increase of women into middle management positions during the previous 10 year period. It was a statistic I found startling, even though it supported the stream of incredible stories I was hearing from women in technology at my client companies."

WITI started out as a series of small meetings with women in southern and northern California talking about issues, ideas for the network, and how WITI could use the network to help other women. When Sun Microsystems hosted the first WITI meeting, WITI was expecting about 50 women to show up. Instead, the room was overflowing with about 250-300 women and things just started spiraling out of control. In 1995 Leighton founded the annual WITI conference series to help actualize the ideals of WITI's mission.

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