Overview
To achieve its strategic objectives, the WiST Initiative is organized into three pillars: Empowerment, Capacity Building, and Community Engagement. The Empowerment pillar works to enable women to advance in the STM field by highlighting prominent and essential roles and contributions of “Pioneer Women” in strategic trade at annual WiST events. The Empowerment pillar also encourages the next generation of women to join the field and includes the development of guidance and tools to promote gender equity in partners’ programming. Highlighting pioneer women gives them a platform to share how they overcame obstacles and provides crucial advice to early and mid-career professionals. Empowerment activities include profiling women trailblazers in publications so they can serve as role models and share the stories of their career progression and accomplishments.
Featured Activity
The annual Women in Strategic Trade (WiST) Forum is the primary activity to empower and amplify women’s voices in the field. The forum features women’s thought leadership and contributions in the field of STM, and provides a forum to share experiences, best practices, and lessons learned regarding implementing STM. The annual forum includes talks from senior managers, panel discussions of emerging leaders, and case studies on relevant topics. Topics have included the challenges and opportunities of critical and emerging technology, breaking barriers and sustaining progress to leadership, cultivating the next generation of experts, and strategies and recommendations for the recruitment, development, retention, and promotion of women in the STM field.
