SmartBear, Axosoft and MassTLC Host #ItWasNeverADress – Women in Tech Panel at SmartBear’s Headquarters

23 Sep 2015, 05:35 AM EDT

Top Women Tech Leaders from SmartBear and Axosoft Discuss Innovative
Work Environments – Wednesday, September 23, 2015 – Somerville,
Massachusetts

SOMERVILLE, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–SmartBear
Software, the leader in software quality tools for the connected
world, along with Axosoft,
the creators behind the viral #ItWasNeverADress
campaign, and MassTLC,
are hosting the panel discussion, “#ItWasNeverADress
– Women in Tech Panel,” on Wednesday, September 23, 2015 at
SmartBear’s global
headquarters in Somerville, Massachusetts. Masha
Kozinets, Director of Product Management at SmartBear, along with Tania
Katan, Curator of Code at Axosoft; Lawdan
Shojaee, CEO at Axosoft; and Sara
Breeding, Marketing Unicorn at Axosoft, are discussing creating an
innovative work environment through encouraging collaboration and
inclusivity.

WHAT: “#ItWasNeverADress – Women in Tech Panel,” Hosted by
SmartBear, Axosoft and MassTLC

WHEN: Wednesday, September 23, 2015, 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. EDT

WHERE: SmartBear’s Corporate Headquarters, Assembly Row, 450
Artisan Way, Somerville, Massachusetts

In an effort to break down barriers and shift perceptions of woman in
technology – and all spaces – Axosoft used their tech superhero powers
of collaboration cross-functionality and agility to offer a radically
reimagined women’s bathroom symbol. Since the #ItWasNeverADress campaign
launched a few months ago, it has generated over 20 million impressions.

Currently Director of Product Management at SmartBear, Masha Kozinets
has been working in the software development industry for over 20 years.
She started her career as a business analyst, and then continued as a
software quality engineer and software usability designer. For Masha,
software product management is the most rewarding job as it gives
exposure to the entire team and all phases of software development life
cycle. Masha’s passion is in building great software that is easy to use
and addresses real world problems for end users. She believes that there
should be an equal number of men and women in STEM professions and
encourages the girls who she coaches to explore these career fields. She
is a graduate of Boston College.

As CEO of Axosoft, Lawdan Shojaee has become one of the few women in the
Phoenix Valley to head a tech company. She has a doctorate in physical
therapy, and over 800 hours logged at the controls of a single-engine
plane. She is passionate about paving the way for women in the tech,
which is why her company created the viral campaign, #ItWasNeverADress.
Lawdan believes strongly in equipping the next generation with the
skills they need to be successful in life, specifically a curriculum of
programming, confidence building and entrepreneurship.

Tania Katan is an award-winning author and creative instigator who
believes in storytelling at all costs. She has performed her stories at
the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, NPR Snap Judgment, TEDX, Comedy Central
Stage and more. Her work has been written about in the New York Times,
Huffington Post, TIME, BuzzFeed and GLAMOUR, among others. Formerly a
Curator of Literary and Performing Arts at a contemporary art museum,
Tania is currently the Curator of Code at Axosoft.

Sara Breeding is a Summa Cum Laude graduate from Arizona State
University, trained in Marketing at the W.P. Carey School of Business
and Design Studies Management at the Herberger Institute for Design and
the Arts. Her attention to detail has brought her great success in
managing small, medium and Fortune 500 client accounts. She is the
Marketing Unicorn at Axosoft where she co-created the #ItWasNeverADress
campaign and works on everything from content strategy and search engine
optimization to social media management.

The event is free. To register, visit: http://www.masstlc.org/events/event_details.asp?id=685587&group.

About SmartBear Software
As the leader in software quality
tools for the connected world, SmartBear supports more than three
million software professionals and over 25,000 organizations in 194
countries that use its products to build and deliver the world’s
greatest applications. With today’s applications deploying on mobile,
Web, desktop, Internet of Things (IoT) or even embedded computing
platforms, the connected nature of these applications through public and
private APIs presents a unique set of challenges for developers, testers
and operations teams. SmartBear’s software quality tools assist with
code review, functional and load testing, API readiness as well as
performance monitoring of these modern applications. For more
information, visit: http://smartbear.com,
or for the SmartBear community, go to: Facebook,
Twitter,
LinkedIn
or Google+.