Thursday, March 12, in honor of International Women’s Day, which is March 8, Language I/O Co-CEO Kaarina Kvaavik will join a group of business owners and visionaries at the #RaiseHerVoice event in Boston, Mass. The event goes from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. EST and features five minute stories from women from all different backgrounds and industries. Each woman will share an aspect of what it means to start and grow a business with viewers from all over the world. #RaiseHerVoice is sponsored by Ellevate Network.

“I am thrilled and honored to be a part of this amazing group of strong and resourceful women,” said Language I/O Co-CEO Kaarina Kvaavik about the event. “Ellevate is an outstanding group of women that is working really hard to provide mentorship and networking opportunities for other women in leadership positions.”

Ellevate Network is an international organization for women that is committed to providing ambitious professional women with the resources and community that they need to accel in their industry. As part of the #RaiseHerVoice campaign, women from cities all over the world were asked to submit speaking proposals that would inform and inspire other women. The speaking proposals were then put out to a public vote. More than 10,000 votes were received for more than 700 nominations. 

In each city with a #RaiseHerVoice event, only a handful of speakers were chosen. Kvaavik is one of five women chosen to speak at the Boston event. 

“Heather Morgan Shoemaker, who is also a Co-CEO of Language I/O, and I have been working in male-dominated industries our entire lives,” said Kvaavik. “As a software development company that helps customers such as LinkedIn, iRobot and Shutterstock provide multilingual customer support to customers all over the world in more than 150 languages over chat, email and article support, we know firsthand how important it is that female entrepreneurs support each other. We’re both proud to support this event and honored to share lessons learned with other women who are looking for guidance.”

Kvaavik’s speech will focus on the disparity between venture capital funding for women-owned business compared to that of male-owned startups. In 2019, only 2.3% of VC funding went to women-owned businesses.  

For more information about the event, follow #RaiseHerVoice or the Ellevate Network.