Halo Career and Professional Development Training

Halo Career and Professional Development Training workshop happened on the 08^th of October 2017 from 9.30 AM to 1.30 PM at SLIIT mini auditorium, Malabe. This project was done in collaboration with Women Techmakers Sri Lanka and Google’s Crowd 9 team. Google’s Crowd 9 team created the Halo project to give back to local communities. The project was focused on young girls who are interested in career and professional development training. This workshop was conducted by Wynnii Lu, Michael Tseng, Christina Funk, Ines Sahmou and Jessica Paul who are Googlers. The Halo Project was consisted with 5 interactive sessions; say hello!, mini stretch, breather, true colours and a Q & A panel discussion session.

Saying hello: done by Googlers, Christina, Michael and Wynnii, an icebreaker session for participants to get to know about each other. Participants were asked to introduce themselves to others by giving a high five, handshake and a fist bump.

Mini stretch: done by the Googler, Wynnii. Participants were asked to write down compliments about themselves as generally people are reluctant to compliment themselves. As the next step a circle of participants were formed and each one was ask to say one compliment about themselves out loud.

IMG-20171014-WA0010 — I am remarkable wall

Breather: in this next session, Googler Wynnii discussed about how to speak confidently and ways to eliminate ‘Um’ when speaking. Then, 3 scenarios were given; meeting a senior exec in the lift, a keynote bio for an event you are speaking at and giving a summary of a key meeting, project or achievement. Participants were asked to think about who the audience is, how to communicate with them and what their needs might be. Then the participants were formed into groups of three to list down and present dos and don’ts for a given scenario. Afterwards, dos and don’ts during an interview were discussed with participants by the Googler Wynnii.

True colors: by the Googler, Wynnii. This session was about letting the participants know about main 4 types of personalities and their characteristics.

Q & A panel discussion session: participants asked questions mainly about the employment in google and IT related questions, from the panel of 4 Googlers.

Last session was the most interesting one; the photoshoot!

The main objective of this workshop was to provide women in local regions career and professional development training on a range of topics from career development to communication to conflict resolution to working with different work styles. With this project, young girls were able to step outside their comfort zones. They were given a proper career guidance and they were encouraged to aim for the best opportunity even though those are harder to achieve. They were also reminded that being a woman would not setback for their choice of career.

The project committee; Rtr. Chamini Ellawala, Rtr. Sandali Thiranagama, Rtr. Dilini De Silva, Rtr. Arundika Weerasekara, Rtr. Danushika Ranawaka and Rtr. Venuri Mallikarachchi volunteered to help with contacting Women Techmakers, handling participants, registration, refreshments and managing stationary for participants.

It was a fun filled interactive session with lots of new knowledge for young girls and was a great opportunity to interact with Googlers. Also, we would like to thank Women Techmakers; one of our very own Past Secretaries Rtr. Michaela Thalagala and Dinuka Jayaweera for all the guidance and the support given.