Girls in Tech is a social network enterprise focused on the engagement, education and empowerment of like-minded, professional, intelligent and influential women in technology. As young women with the capacity to inspire, we made it our personal desire and passion to create and sustain an organization that focuses on the collaboration, promotion, growth and success of women in the technology sector.

Created in February of 2007, ‘Girls in Tech’ (GIT) was founded by Adriana Gascoigne. GIT and was born out of a need to provide a place for women to cultivate ideas around their careers and business concepts involving technology.

Girls in Tech aims to offer a variety of resources and tools for women to supplement and further enhance their professional careers and aspirations in technology. Some of these resources include, educational workshops and lectures, networking functions, round table discussions, conferences, social engagements, and recruitment events.

Adriana F. Gascoigne
Girls in Tech Global - Founder

Adriana is the Director of Global Communications for SGN. SGN’s currentnetwork of games commands over ten million downloads of its suite of games onthe iPhone and iPod Touch and more than one million game players per day acrossmultiple social networking platforms including Facebook and MySpace. In her roleas the Director of Global Communications, she provides strategic guidance ondigital marketing and new media campaigns including word-of-mouth marketingprograms, social media initiatives, and digital integration project management.

Most recently, Adriana was the Director of Global Communications for hi5.Launched in 2003, hi5 is now one of the world’s largest social networks - rankedas a top 20 website globally and the #1 social network in 33 countries acrossLatin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. According to comScore, more than 63million individuals every month visit hi5, which is currently available in 50languages options.

Previously, Adriana was the Vice President of the 360 Digital Influence Groupat Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide where she spearheaded operations for socialmedia, word-of-mouth marketing and digital campaigns for clients such as Intel,Wells Fargo, Brocade, ACC, Sun Power, Case Logic, YieldBuild and Naked Juice.Prior to working at Ogilvy, she served as the Vice President of FutureWorksMedia in San Francisco, managing all aspects of operations including businessdevelopment, digital strategy and account management. Some of her clientsincluded MeeVee, WooMe, Yojo Mobile, DocStoc, Magnify, Fantasy Sports Matrix,Ujogo, StreetAdvisor, Yoono, HeyCosmo, SayHeyHey, GoBig and YourTrumanShow.

A seasoned Web 2.0′er, Adriana is a vlogger for Mevio, Bubblicious,Revision3, MeeVee, TheWeakSpot, BuzzShout, publishes her own tech lifestyle blogand buzzes around Silicon Valley speaking at industry events such as theBillboard Interactive Music Conference, Streaming Media West Summit, ProjectStartup, Web Video Summit and Tech Innovations Summit.

In March 2007, Adriana launched Girls in Tech, an organization focused ontouting women’s achievements in tech and beyond. Also, Adriana recently joined aselect group of Web 2.0 enthusiasts that are known as the “Intel Insiders,”which serve as brand advisors for Intel. She is an advisor to Involver.com,Change.org and FantasySportMatrix.com. In Spring 2009, she will be launchingSmitten With Mittens, a non-profit providing warm mittens and clothing toorphans in developing countries during their respective winter seasons.

Adriana holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Economics from theUniversity of California at Davis, received a certification from El Tecnologicode Monterrey in Mexico, and was enrolled in Semester at Sea, University ofPittsburgh in 1997. Adriana is also fluent in Spanish and speaks some Japaneseand French.

Candace Sweigart
Girls in Tech Boise - Managing Director

Candace is Founder and Technical Solution Architect for Agilefront, a custom software development and technical consulting firm based in Boise, Idaho. Candace engineers software solutions for companies to accomplish Channel Enablement, Customer Acquisition and Retention, Custom Marketing Applications, and Event Marketing initiatives.

Candace brings her unique blend of strong technical leadership and web application aptitude with an ability to communicate with technical and non technical client contacts at a high level. When Candace is not engineering a new software solution, she is engaged in social media communities, playing strategy computer games with her family, and teaching her English Springer Spaniel pup some crazy new tricks.

Krissa Wrigley
Girls in Tech Boise - Advisory Board

When her dreams of ruling the universe as a judge were dashed due to low LSAT scores, she returned to graduate school to earn a Masters in Economics and a PhD in Sociology. Combined with her BA in French, Krissa credits these very valuable (read marketable) skills with her ability to be a jack of all trades. Upon leaving school, she embarked on a career in government, spending eight years in economic development in both ID and OR. She returned to Boise where she worked as Director of Client Services for a market research firm and as an Account Manager for a startup grassroots marketing company.  She was most recently the VP of Research & Evaluation at Idaho TechConnect and an editor of TechBoise, which reports all things Tech in Boise.  Krissa is currently serving as a grant writer and reviewer and figuring out what she wants to do next.

She is the Area Chair for Financial Planning, Control and Risk and the Area Chair for Law with the College of Business at the University of Phoenix Idaho Campus, where she has taught for the past seven years. Prior to that, she was an adjunct faculty member at Boise State.

Kelly is an independent benefits broker and advisor helping companies with their health insurance and employee benefit plans. Kelly founded Strategic Benefits in 2002 which merged with Myriad Benefits in 2009. As the co-owner of another business, Madison Roofing, she is drawn to the entrepreneurial spirit common to the technology sector and believes that technology plays a key role in the growth of our economy. A total “Gadget Freak” and “Techie Wannabe” Kelly hopes to be a valuable resource and a mentor to those in the tech industry in terms of knowledge in her field of expertise, as well as her experience as a business owner and entrepreneur

Katie helps small businesses grow by implementing expert, uncomplicated, personalized IT solutions. 

Her Information Technology knowledge and experience includes operations and management, which includes computer/network support, training, business analysis and web design. 

During her career, she worked on various projects; operations support, software and hardware standardization, process improvement, vendor negotiations, and project management. She was quickly promoted to a program management position where she tracked 90+ employees’ projects with 250+ projects at a Fortune 500 company.