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 a Lead Software Engineer and Producer for Wirestone, an independent marketing solutions company uniquely ranked on two Advertising Top 50 lists – as both an integrated marketing services agency and an interactive agency. Candace engineers software solutions for Fortune 500 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.

Tina is a Business Manager for SolutionPro, a locally owned and operated data center in Boise, Idaho. Having created a successful career with this 'boutique' data center, Tina espcially loves the very personal service she and her team offer, and is even more proud of her passion and ability to create a FUN enivronment in a sometimes austere industry (sorry, gang, it's just the truth).

After graduting with a BA in Sociology from UC Santa Barbara in 1995, she relocated to Seattle, WA and began a career in internet marketing. When sun deprivation set in 10 years later she boldly moved to Idaho and found herself in the data center world. who would've thought?

The Data Center Girl - as she has coined herself - loves to travel, boat, ski, and  hang with her husband and friends, especially other Girls In Tech members.  Tina strongly believes building relationships through networking and social media are the keys to success.