When it comes to empowering women in tech, Avni Barman believes that culture starts at the top. If a business’s culture lacks diversity and equity, it will never feel like a place where you can belong, grow, and succeed. A 2019 graduate of the USC Iovine and Young Academy, Barman has been passionate about solving the same problem since she was a student. How can women find community and peer support in the tech industry and the startup world? How can we increase the number of women in founder and leadership positions? As the founder of Generation She, an organization connecting women with startups (and each other), Barman is not only providing more opportunities for female tech talent, she’s aiming to expand the pool of women working at the top of their fields. Having the right skills is one way to make change happen for women in these industries, but offering them a sense of kinship and community is the key to making a lasting impact. 

“Nobody wants to spend time in places where they can’t relate to or resonate with anyone around them. People want to spend time in places where they find belonging, where they feel safe, where they feel excited, and where they can visualize growth. It’s very difficult to visualize growing your career if there aren’t people above you,” Barman says. 

This perspective goes hand and hand with the same theories Barman has been testing since she was a student at IYA. After struggling to find her community in a big tech engineering role, she realized the deep-seated issues embedded in corporate and startup environments. Observing the stagnant number of women in tech leadership roles and experiencing first-hand how hard it is to exist in a position without the encouragement of like-minded colleagues and mentors, she knew she had to move the needle with her own hands. What started as community building through events has evolved into an actionable opportunity-maker for women in tech everywhere, connecting them to top startups so they can further their careers while feeling supported along the way. 

Generation She officially got off the ground during Barman’s senior year at IYA. After enlisting a group of over 150 high school girls at Snap Inc. in Los Angeles for an event featuring female industry leaders and founders, Barman found the authentic insight she needed to make a motivating mark. Since its inception, the company has hosted more successful community-building and activation events – or Makeathons – that bring together hundreds of women all looking to hone their entrepreneurial skills and find a place of belonging. Actually, the virtual Makeathon in 2020 amassed over 7,000 attendees.

Today, Generation She goes beyond large-scale events, allowing jobseekers to submit their profiles to top startups hiring for positions. Accepting an offer on the platform gives users “exclusive access to a private network of the brightest Gen Z women in tech.” Having mentorship and professional development at your fingertips helps break the “chicken and the egg” cycle that Barman has witnessed in the tech world. Women are less likely to gravitate towards startups that don’t employ other women. Generation She aims to disrupt that chain by offering community, skill-building tools, and the diffusion of a ripple effect on who and how people hire. 

“The women in the community I had built deeply impacted me and shaped me,” she shares of the significance of having women within reach in her professional corner. “They fundamentally altered how I make decisions and what I thought about myself. I really realized the power of that, and I have uniquely been able to curate those experiences for myself, but with extremely high effort. I literally had to build a company.” 

“A company cannot think about diversity 200 people in, they need to think about diversity at the earliest stages through founding employees,” she says of the importance of women in leadership roles. 

In Barman’s eyes, community is paramount to Gen Z women’s professional experience. Having spent their formative years in a pandemic, they’re well-versed in the benefits of connection, online or otherwise. Noting how “digitally native and tech-forward” this generation is, careers in tech are both an obvious and organic path now. She also sees the classic archetype of the billion-dollar company engineer and white male founder being turned on its head. With the advent of AI and coding advancements, launching a corporation requires more than a technical advantage. She sees women in the potential “front seat” for the first time ever because of their propensity to create and their ability to reach audiences and find distribution. Women also promote social impact and are committed to altruistic endeavors that make a difference. 

As for the future of the industry, Barman questions the prospective notion of a “tech company.” Tech is going to touch every aspect of our lives moving forward. 

She posits, “10, 20 years from now there’s no such thing as a tech company – every company is a tech company!  What is this idea of a tech company anyway? It seems like it will be ever-present.”

No matter what’s in store for the definition of tech, the need for belonging will always play a significant part in how people navigate their careers – and lives. Since her time at IYA, things have come full circle for Barman, whose cohort experience directly aligns with her mission to cultivate community. 

“Being surrounded by like-minded ambitious people is ultimately how human beings achieve their deepest potential … IYA builds a critical environment for that to happen so seamlessly and organically, which I think is able to supercharge my learning and my confidence,” she explains of how she conceived of her business. “That was what I wanted -- to build similar opportunities -- seamless and frictionless collaborative experiences, and support in these minority spaces for women, so we can reach our greatest potential. A lot of that comes from IYA, and it’s deeply impacted me. I’m excited to bring that all over the world.” 

As the founder of Generation She, Avni Barman is not only providing more opportunities for female tech talent, she’s aiming to expand the pool of women working at the top of their fields. Having the right skills is one way to make change happen for women in these industries, but offering them a sense of kinship and community is the key to making a lasting impact.

Right Where She Belongs: Creating a Community for Women in Tech