Tech Alpharetta Announces Launch of Women’s Forum’s STEAM Mentoring Program

ALPHARETTA, Ga.–Tech Alpharetta, the nonprofit organization helping the City of Alpharetta lead in tech innovation, announces the official launch of its Women’s Forum’s STEAM Mentoring program.

“Morgan Stanley’s IT team is also building an app for the program, enabling us to scale the number of participants and schools the program can serve.”

The Tech Alpharetta Women’s Forum’s STEAM (science, technology, engineering, math, and the digital arts) Mentoring program pairs accomplished female technology executives with female high school students for regular mentoring sessions at their school. The program was designed by Tech Alpharetta Women’s Forum co-chairs, Sunita Arora, COO of Alpharetta-based Medicus IT, and David Fisher, Executive Director for Morgan Stanley and a member of Tech Alpharetta’s Board of Directors, with the help of the Women’s Forum’s Advisory Board.

“Our program’s goal is to help to inspire more girls to pursue careers in STEAM,” states Arora. “The gender gap has persisted in technology. By providing female technology executive role models to mentor students, we hope to show them the diversity of career options available in the STEAM fields, while providing them each with a trusted female guide.”

The STEAM Mentoring program was piloted in the spring of 2022 at Fulton County Schools’ Innovation Academy High School in Alpharetta, under the supervision of Pam Whitlock, chair of IT for the high school. The initiative was such a success that the Tech Alpharetta Women’s Forum expanded the program’s size and officially launched it at the school in August 2022. Program mentors for the 2022-2023 school year include executives from Fiserv, Jackson Healthcare, Morgan Stanley, Scientific Games, Surgical Information Systems, Teledyne, Verint, and Verizon.

“We’re growing the program slowly and mindfully as we develop best practices, including monthly mentoring sessions at the school, along with company site visits,” notes Fisher. “Morgan Stanley’s IT team is also building an app for the program, enabling us to scale the number of participants and schools the program can serve.”

About Tech Alpharetta

Tech Alpharetta (previously the Alpharetta Technology Commission), the first organization of its kind in Georgia, was established in 2012 by the City of Alpharetta and is an independent, 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization today. The organization, whose mission is to help grow technology and innovation in Alpharetta, includes a strategic advisory board of Alpharetta’s leading technology companies, technology thought leadership events for area tech executives, the Tech Alpharetta Women’s Forum, and the Tech Alpharetta Innovation Center, a flourishing tech startup incubator that is home to dozens of tech startups. Learn more at https://www.techalpharetta.com.