From increasing the diversity of our workforce and industry to reducing our environmental impacts to empowering our communities through philanthropic investments and volunteering, corporate responsibility (CR) touches every aspect of Symantec’s business. We’ve defined our strategy and are continually working towards our goals to operate as a responsible global citizen.
In addition to our dedicated global corporate responsibility team, every day Symantec employees across countries and business units collaborate to deliver on our mission of protecting our customers, our communities and our planet.
We are happy to feature a quarterly series – Inspired, United, Ignited: Symantec’s Corporate Responsibility Champions- that profiles stand out examples of our how our employees directly contribute to the implementation of our CR strategy. Some are leaders in our CR team, members of our Green Teams or champions for our employee resource groups, others are innovating to address needs in their function or region. All are inspiring others, uniting communities and igniting change to make Symantec a leading corporate citizen and to make our world a safer place.
Today we highlight our Volunteer of the Quarter Anna Xie, Associate Financial Analyst, Sales Finance. Symantec’s Volunteer of the Quarter initiative highlights and rewards those employees who dedicate their time and talents to those in need.
Sometimes it becomes all too easy to fall into our individual silos and see our work and lives with tunnel vision. For me, settling into a daily routine became almost too comfortable. I found myself wanting to get more involved and bring my energy to efforts beyond my cubicle. And in December of last year, I found the perfect cause and outlet for my attention.
It started with a screening of the documentary CodeGirl at Symantec's Mountain View headquarters. I went on a whim…and left incredibly inspired. The documentary follows the journey of girls who are taking part in the Technovation Challenge, an international mobile app entrepreneurship competition for middle and high school girls that encourages females to pursue personal passions and careers in business and technology.
The competition hopes to excite young girls to pursue technology passions, and brings awareness to the significant gender gap in the technology industry. For example, although the app market will be valued at $77 billion in 2017, over 80% of these developers are male[1].
In the competition, participants form teams to build and pitch start-up ideas for mobile apps that address community problems. Since 2010 when the program began with just 45 girl participants, it has grown tremendously and today reaches 5,000 girls from 28 countries that have created over 1,000 apps[2].
Symantec's Volunteer of the Quarter Anna Xie, Associate Financial Analyst, Sales Finance.
Seeing such young girls foster their passion for the intersection of technology, business, and social good inspired me to get involved however I could. And the 2016 competition was looking for professional mentors to provide advice and guidance to local teams. I could think of no better way to make an impact than leveraging what I am doing and learning every day to support not just young women in tech, but also Symantec as a company and our broader industry.
It wasn’t long before I convinced a friend to co-mentor with me. With her experience as an Associate Product Manager at Google and mine as an Associate Financial Analyst at Symantec, we provided a wide breadth of skills and experiences to share. Besides, volunteering with friends is always more enjoyable!
During my time at Symantec, I have also volunteered with the Boys & Girls Club of Silicon Valley, the Second Harvest Food Bank, Techbridge, and RAFT (Resource Area for Teaching). Since entering the Finance Rotation Program in August, I have been volunteering for both one-time opportunities and ongoing projects. One-time projects are typically around 1-2 hours, and are a great way to spend time with coworkers and friends alike.
Ongoing projects such as Technovation require more time and dedication. As a professional mentor, my team and I met for two hours a week, every week for the past four months to review progress and discuss next steps to designing, building, and crafting a business model for their app. Although I am not as familiar with coding or app development, I was able to use the business and finance skills I learned from university and my current role to help the team craft their strategy. You can click here to see my team's website, screenshots of their app prototype, and pitch video.
Anna Xie, Volunteer of the Quarter, with her co-mentor and high schoolers from her Technovation Challenge team. The team named themselves “Objectively Oriented” and created an education / community app called “Bacon Bumper.”
Although I enjoy volunteering for one-time events, I find the most fulfillment in long-term projects. With Technovation, I saw a chance to not only promote a cause I care about, but also to develop mentorship relationships with students that will have lasting impact. Getting to know the students on a personal level and mentoring them beyond the competition has been the most gratifying part of this experience. Not only did we get to watch the girls become more sure of themselves, develop new skills, and bring their ideas to life, but during the past few months, my co-mentor and I also provided advice and guidance for a range of topics including “how do I apply to and pick a college?” to “wait… what color should our team t-shirt be?”
For me, and I think for most who volunteer, giving back offers the opportunity to not only do good for others, but also to revitalize and inspire yourself.
