Celebrating International Women's Day
International Women Day 2022 is a great opportunity to celebrate some of the women that help us to succeed in our mission but also work in the EdTech industry in Australia.
Technology and Education are making a real difference in learning. Thankfully, we have seen that the Australian tech and entrepreneur industry is improving gender balance representation by celebrating initiatives and resources designed, pioneered and led by women. Plus, the education industry is also campaigning to encourage more girls to study subjects in STEM at secondary school level and beyond.
From our VET department, Sonia Campbell and Debra Mieklejohn both recently joined ReadCloud and come from diverse backgrounds, illustrating how EdTech can attract some of the hardest working and driven women in business. Here are their stories and experience in EdTech in Australia.
Sonia Campbell
Sonia is National Sales Manager for ReadCloud VET. After supporting Australian schools in the media sector, Sonia joined ReadCloud and the EdTech sector as“it’s an exciting space and [I] wanted to be part of it”
“Education has always been an interest to me as I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up!” Today, as schools work more and more in the digital space, Sonia wanted to be part of this growing industry and continue to expand her breadth of knowledge. For Sonia, women in EdTech in Australia just “makes sense” as 70% of the workforce in schools is female.
One piece of advice to other women just starting their careers in EdTech? “It is never too late to learn something new”. In term of inspiration, for Sonia, Arianna Huffington is a powerful leader who “isn’t afraid to push the boundaries”
Something you may not know about Sonia: “I am a coffee purist and love my morning ritual of putting on my Caffettiera (my Bialetti Italian percolator) as I’m Italian and have it strong with a shot of warmed milk no sugar”
Debra Meiklejohn
With over 35 years experience in Sales within the Education and Retail Categories, Debra joined ReadCloud in 2022 to be our VET National Sales Director.
Working for ReadCloud was an “opportunity to be involved in an area of education that is growing and has the technology for what education is offering now and in the future to Australian schools and educators.”
Even after 10 years of experience in Education, she is still passionate about the industry and loves supporting schools and educators to give students a chance to prosper and grow through digital learning. Debra’s passion for the EdTech community comes from wanting to “make a difference, make education a growth area of technology support and advice”.
For Debra, “we don’t hear enough about the great things achieved” by women in EdTech, but it remains a broad industry where you can learn everyday.
An achievement Debra is deeply proud of: “The best professional accomplishment for me is to be successful on all levels in my career, and family. Combining success with the satisfaction of raising three well educated children who are now in their best adult life period fulfilling their career goals ultimately because of a solid education.”
One piece of advice to other women just starting their careers in EdTech? “Be patient, listen, understand and absorb every piece of new information.”
For this latte addict, every woman working in education is a source of inspiration: “…they are professionals, mothers, sisters and daughters …women [have] taken on a lot but what we do know is that women are great teachers and educators in life and career.”
