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Vote for Forté in the SXSW Panel Picker

Isn’t South by Southwest (or SXSW as most know it), a Music Festival?  Well, yes.  But it’s also one of the most electric gatherings of professionals in business, technology, education and the arts in the United States.  Through conferences, exhibits, pitch competitions and, of course, concerts, SXSW is a multi-day confluence of new ideas and entertainment that takes place each year in mid-March in Austin, Texas.

And in 2019, Forté wants to be there!

SXSW is really three events in one – a music festival, film conference, and SXSW Interactive, which is a hotbed of new ideas and technologies. Running concurrently with the larger SXSW, there is also SXSW EDU, focusing exclusively on educational innovation. Conferences highlighting “new ideas” has Forte written all over it, and we have submitted proposals to both SXSW and SXSW EDU.

This is where you come in!  A cool feature of SXSW is its unique process – the Panel Picker – through which the community at large helps shape the program by voting and commenting on session proposals.  It’s competitive – last year SXSW received more than 5,700 proposals and used the Panel Picker to narrow down the field.  So we are asking you to participate in the Panel Picker Process and vote for us!

Of course – you’ll need to know what you are voting for and how to do it!

Here are the proposals we submitted to SXSW and SXSW EDU, and we hope that you will help us get these messages out by voting for us to speak!

Forté Panel Descriptions

SXSW: Male Allies, Mentors and Sponsors at Work

In 2016, Forté launched a pioneering Men as Allies program and toolkit to help men support their female colleagues in MBA programs across the country. That program has now extended to the corporate arena. Earlier this year, Brad Johnson and David Smith published Athena Rising: How and Why Men Should Mentor Women. Within the book, Johnson and Smith, both professors at the U.S. Naval Academy, offer a no-nonsense, timely guide that will benefit any man who wants to more effectively mentor or manage women in the workforce. In this session, Forté Executive Director, Elissa Sangster collaborates with Johnson and Smith to explore how male allies, mentors and sponsors are the key to achieving a more gender equal workplace.

SXSW EDU: Turning Mythical Knights into Authentic Allies

Male Allies aren’t knights in shining armor. Allies are men who genuinely want to be part of creating a bias-free business culture that values myriad leadership styles and diverse approaches to problem solving. Launched by Forté in 2016 to help men support their female colleagues, Men as Allies is a pioneering program complete with toolkit, website and resources. This panel is for those seeking a better understanding of the gender equity goal and its benefits for the classroom and work.

How to Vote for Forté

Voting runs from August 6 – 30, 2018. When you create an account with the Panel Picker, you’ll be able to Vote Up on our session idea. Votes are kept private and you have the option to add comments to our session idea. And if you love our ideas, please drop a note saying so! You do not need to be registered for SXSW to vote – it’s open to all of the community.

Your votes are important because they make up 30% of the total score of our proposal. Please share with your networks, too. Vote for Forté on SXSW and SXSW EDU, and help us share our work toward gender equity with a broader community.

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