Standing Beside Emerging Women Leaders
How TechWomen connects accomplished women across the globe with mentors who help amplify their impact.
Back in May 2025, I wrote about TechWomen and the power of mentorship. TechWomen is a U.S. State Department program, run by the Institute of International Education, that brings accomplished women in STEM from across the world to Silicon Valley and Chicago, pairing them with mentors who help amplify their impact.
It all started with a Walk the Talk I did with my colleague Abeetha Bala, Senior Product Manager at Amazon CloudWatch, when she was visiting Seattle. I was so moved by what I heard that I invited her to record an episode with me. In that session, she told me about her years of volunteering and how she co-founded the TechWomen AWS chapter.
I believe mentorship is one of the most important responsibilities we carry. Hearing Abeetha describe her own journey in our recording session deepened that conviction, and it moved me to apply to be a mentor myself. I also wrote that piece in May to encourage others to take the same step.
The video first circulated through internal channels and even made its way into Amazon’s internal newsletter that is emailed to all employees. I was exhilarated to hear from Abeetha that two AWS colleagues who signed up as first-time mentors this year said they were inspired by our episode.
A few weeks ago, I was humbled and thrilled to learn I had been selected as a mentor. Today I met my mentee for the first time. Her name is Assma Benmussa. She has been a software developer since 2017 and worked on a breadth of technologies. Abeetha and I will be co-mentoring her. Our kickoff meeting was full of passion, energy, and drive. I am excited for what’s next for Assma.
In other news, last Friday, the video of my conversation with Abeetha was also published on AWS’s official YouTube channel. So I decided to bring these threads together here: to reflect on that conversation in May, the lessons Abeetha shared, and what they mean as I begin my own journey with TechWomen.
What follows is a summary of our conversation, with some quotes lightly edited for clarity. You can also watch the full episode here.
We started our walk on a spring afternoon in Seattle, sitting outside on the shady patio of Amazon’s Blackfoot building. Abeetha began explaining TechWomen.
It is a mentorship program in the United States. We have over three hundred women leaders. Some are medical doctors, some with PhDs, some are entrepreneurs very successful in their fields. They come here to understand technology, learn more about emerging trends, and experience the culture. At AWS we host a TechWomen chapter.
TechWomen offers several forms of mentorship. Professional mentors support careers in STEM, cultural mentors help participants navigate life in a new country, and innovation mentors guide projects that tackle socioeconomic challenges back home.
Abeetha mentioned in our talk that participants arrive from 22 countries across Africa, Central and South Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. The official stay lasts five weeks, but the work does not end when they return home. Mentors often continue with monthly calls, helping leaders navigate challenges back in their own communities.
I asked Abeetha to recall one example from her TechWomen journey that moved her. She told me that every TechWomen program ends with an impact project. One of those projects, she said, “really brought tears to my eyes.” It was about water hygiene.
The participants spoke about how hard it was to find clean water, how every day was a struggle just to access something safe to drink. Listening to her describe it, I pointed out how far removed that reality is from the country we are living in. That moment when you turn on a faucet and clean water flows without a thought. That is a luxury many in the world do not have.
Abeetha nodded and broadened it to other barriers.
These causes are so real because every day they struggle for them. Some women wanted to move forward in life, to start their own businesses, but societal constraints held them back. They were grounded to do what they had to do and they really wanted a way to start their own business.
I asked about a field visit she had mentioned earlier, a trip that brought these lessons home even more forcefully. “Last year I had the privilege of going to Tajikistan, where we were in the field after these women went back,” she said.
She and other mentors traveled across Tajikistan, visiting universities and bootcamps that had been launched by TechWomen alumnae. They saw firsthand the kind of coaching participants had carried back with them and the impact it was already having.
The trip itself was a lesson in contrast.
We did not have good Wi-Fi connectivity throughout the seven-day trip. I was going on bumpy roads, the state of infra that was there, again, gave me a lot of appreciation as I came back.
For her, the lack of reliable Internet and basic infrastructure reframed what we, in our bubbles, sometimes consider inconveniences.
Even a ten-second Wi-Fi bloop is something that none of us can bear today. And being there with spotty Wi-Fi for seven days gave me better appreciation of the country we live in.
That week, seeing the work continue in Tajikistan, despite challenges of roads and connectivity, made clear to Abeetha just how resilient and determined the participants were.
I asked her if and how this journey over the past two years had changed her. Abeetha talked about how mentoring had developed her as much as it helped participants. She mentioned the group activities she had to lead and the talks she needed to give as part of her participation. “How do you confidently navigate a crowd? That is a skill set I’ve improved with TechWomen.” she said.
As a mentor at AWS, she also fielded many technical questions. Mentees asked about AWS services like SageMaker and Amazon Q.
It has helped me learn better. Last year I did a session on AWS Startups, an area I was not comfortable in. I had to meet so many people to understand what they do in that business.
I asked her, as a male ally, if I could be a mentor or participate in helping in some way. Abeetha said that although it is called TechWomen, mentors are not limited to women. They accept applications from all gender identities, including male allies.
She said “the only qualification you need is wanting to serve a greater purpose.”
She explained that applications open every June. Even if someone cannot commit to the full program, they can still contribute by leading a one-day workshop or covering a specific topic. The 2025 program has already begun, so if you are willing to help with workshops or other technical sessions, reach out to me or to Abeetha.
We ended our conversation with an important reminder: sign up for TechWomen’s newsletter to be notified of new volunteer opportunities as they become available.
A single nudge from a mentor can open a door that might have stayed shut. It changed the course of my own life when my mentors did the same for me, and now I have another chance to pass that on.
I am excited for what comes next.