It started in San Francisco in 2007 as a casual meeting of industry friends interested in talking about all things tech, such as the start-up culture, product marketing and development and business dealings.

Said founder Adriana Gascoigne, who recently moved to Singapore and has since started the Singapore chapter, “This meeting was meant as a sounding board for the minority in tech – women – to help answer questions, address any concerns in the workplace, bounce product feature ideas off of each other. It was also meant to inspire women in tech to become “intrapreneurs” as well as entrepreneurs since our gender was and still is, relatively scarce in the tech industry.

“We were on a mission to give female developers, designers and marketers a voice and encourage the younger generations to embrace technology and the start-up world as a viable career path.”

Five years on, Girls in Tech has grown to over 38 active chapters across the globe from the Middle East (Kuwait and United Arab Emirates) to Asia (China, Singapore and Japan); Europe such as (UK, France, Germany and Ireland) and Latin America with active chapters in Chile, Brazil, and recently Guatemala.

Beyond a social networking platform, GIT is also focused on education. It has rolled out three programmes – Girls in Tech “Professional,” “Girls in Tech University or “GIT U”and “Girls in Tech Mentorship Program”.

This year, it will produce the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference (a one-day traditional conference showcasing women in the tech industry), The AMPLIFY Business Pitch Competition (a business pitch competition promoting women’s start-ups) and Girls in Tech 360 or “GIT360,” which is a entrepreneur labs programme enabling 20 female entrepreneurs to learn the skills of the start-up trade, helping them in the company launch process.

Technology + Travel: Match made in heaven

For Gascoigne, who recently joined the travel start-up, Impulse Flyer, to head business development, travel and technology are an excellent fit in the following ways – ease of booking and convenience; social discovery; customer service; and content development, distribution and discovery.

And she sees exciting developments taking place in these areas of travel – content curation, targeted niche travel sites; comprehensive aggregation search engines; personalized and customized crowd-sourced recommendations and ratings platforms; mobile apps and the rise of budget airlines.

Gascoigne’s first start-up experience was at a company called GUBA. Similar to YouTube, GUBA was a user-generated content site, which made it easy for people to post, share and search interesting video content. “I was absolutely immersed in this trend-setting company. It had such an active, nimble and creative culture that going to work everyday was more of a positive addiction than an activity I was forced to do to pay the bills.

“To this day, I remember every moment of my experience and how it has influenced the rest of my career to present-day.”

The scalability and convenience of technology

The thing that fascinates her most about technology is how scalable it is. “From one minute to the next, a product can be built that will connect or entertain someone in the US and simultaneously, someone in Singapore. This product can span across multiple geographies in a very short time period.

“Additionally, it is amazing to me when technology is crowdsourced or when people are able to collaborate on products, virtually. The accessibility to the cloud and connectivity of the world or “globalization” is changing the way we do business, and the speed by which we can implement and develop new products.

“Another thing that I love about technology is convenience. Hardware and software products are built to make sure that our lives are easier – devices are smaller, information can be spread faster, communication is more seamless and entertainment is at our fingertips.

“Whether you’re referring to Moore’s law or Stanford’s Engineering program or Singularity University, the world is constantly innovating at an even more rapid pace partially in an effort to “optimize life” – make things more convenient for people like you and me.”

Singapore’s need for a risk culture

On her move to Singapore, which has aspirations to become the Silicon Valley of Asia, Gascoigne said, “I thought that it would be a great place for me to learn about the tech industry in a new market, launch Girls in Tech Singapore and network within the active and curious, yet small start-up community in Singapore. There is a lot of potential in Singapore and I would love to play a role in planting the Silicon Valley seed here.”

From her few months in the city, she feels that the Singaporean tech community needs a leadership-injection.

“I believe that some of the smartest people in the world live in Singapore and are fully capable of launching their own start-ups and developing interesting and innovative products. However, the culture here underscores and aligns credibility and honour with graduating from a prestigious college and jumping head-first into a MNC.

“It is almost frowned upon to take such a risk in starting a company without any built-up work skills and experience.

“One of the mottos that I live by day-to-day is “embrace risk.” If there is anything that I’d like to share with the Singaporean tech community it is just that – embracing risk will enable people to become more entrepreneurial, innovative and leadership-oriented.”

She also feels not enough credit is given to developers without whom the tech industry would be nowhere.

“We should be fully indebted to this group of talented individuals whom enable us to use cool products on the internet, on our mobile phones, etc.

“I look up to these people because, by trade, I am a product marketer – a very “right-brained” profession. Coding seems so incredibly foreign and difficult to me, and I feel that a lot of schooling, innate talent and dedication is required to really make it in the field.

“I also feel that engineers aren’t really given a voice as much as other more forward-facing positions in start-ups such as BD, marketing and sales. Usually coders are in front of their computers from morning till late night and rarely have the opportunity to interact and engage with others in the company [or get accolades for their achievements].

“I salute those with a true talent and dedication to coding and building cool, new products that inevitably will make an impact on society and help change the world.”

* Adriana Gascoigne will be speaking at WITX – Women In Travel on April 27, in Bangkok. View programme here. And book your early bird seats before March 31.