Michelle Hua becomes WoW Manchester Ambassador
By Michelle Hua @MadewithGlove
Michelle Hua (photo credits: Sarah Jones)
Over the summer, I had to make the difficult decision to take a step back from Women of Wearables. With Marija’s full support, my role is now the WoW Manchester Ambassador.
My exit as co-founder and Director of Women of Wearables, an organisation that I started and built with Marija has not only fulfilled but exceeded my dream and vision of bringing women in wearable tech together to inspire, motivate and connect them with each other. We never anticipated the overwhelming amount of support we received globally from our WoW women. Hearing all their stories and being involved in their successes, their challenges, their struggles and celebrating their wins were and still is very inspiring to us!
Marija is an amazing co-founder whom I’ve had the pleasure of working with and meeting through Ada’s List, an online technology platform that connects women in tech. Women in tech is a powerful network that cannot be overlooked.
WoW's Women & Fashion Technology meetup & panel discussion, June 2017
#HowSheDidIt event, October 2016
In just 18 months, Marija, Rachael and I reached out, connected with and interviewed over 150 women in wearable tech, had WoW featured in TechCrunch, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, Engineering & Technology, we spread the WoW message at women in technology events, organised our own #FashionTech, #PetTech, #HowSheDidIt events in London, delivered wearable tech workshops, celebrated International Women’s Day at the Wearable Technology Show with our #WoWwomen, built a WoW community of over 8000 members globally and started a WoW chapter in Berlin with Nayara Moia.
WoW women at Wearable Tech Show 2017
Michelle and Marija at WeAreTheCity conference 2016, with Dr Sue Black, founder of #TechMums
While it was hard work, we definitely also had a lot of fun together along the way!
My next steps
With the success of the wearable tech workshops for Cisco and students in Manchester, I will continue to deliver my workshops with my wearable tech assistant Rachael Yeung in Manchester and all over the UK. I am also moving them online so that I can continue to teach but also include a more diverse range of students globally.
WoW Wearable Tech workshops with FDisruptors Liverpool
My own start up, MadeWithGlove has gained some great traction which requires my time to seek funding, build the team and the product. Connecting with our WoW women has given me new ideas which I’m very excited about!
I am also a recipient of and now Ambassador for the UK Tech Nation Exceptional Talent Visa. I am excited to continue to help tech entrepreneurs from around the world come to the UK by helping them with their visa applications.
London will always be my second home and I will continue to be involved with Women of Wearables as the WoW Manchester Ambassador. I am very excited for plans of Women of Wearables to grow globally with a very strong and very capable WoW woman Marija Butkovic leading the way from London!
Michelle Hua and her assistant Rachael Yeung at Made With Glove Manchester office
Thank you for all your support for WoW so far and please continue to support our global mission by joining our WoW community here.
I’ll be reporting for WoW from Manchester and the North of England so stay tuned for interesting news and updates from up North!
I’d like to leave you with a guest blog from my 17 year old work experience student who has decided to study Electrical Engineering at the University of Sheffield. It is this reason we need to keep our young girls engaged, motivated and show them how they can do it so we can close the gender gap in tech!
This blog was written by Michelle Hua. Based in Manchester UK, Michelle is the founder and CEO of Made With Glove and Manchester Ambassador of Women of Wearables. Visit www.michellehua.co.uk or follow Michelle on Twitter @MadeWithGlove.