In 2019, Forge teamed up with the non-profit, WeXL.org. Their mission is to connect a diverse creative workforce of storytellers, engineers, and artists from under-served communities with mentors to apply their creativity and innovation to creating a just and more prosperous world.
Autodesk as a company has built diversity and inclusion not only into it's mission but also as a core company value. Their inclusion and diversity initiatives strive to expand opportunities that help to lead change that creates opportunity for diverse workforce. These efforts includes partnerships with professional organizations, universities, and strong efforts to continually enhance inclusive hiring practices. Even as an individual employee, Autodesk makes my impact more mighty as they match non-profit donations and support employees donating their time with a paid volunteer time off benefit.
Forge has provided tons of hours and resources for non-profits, diverse professional organizations, and universities that focus on creating opportunities for under-served and local communities. We've partnered with Women Who Code, Codame and LimbForge to name a few.
This year, we've expanded to support diversity in creative in addition to opportunities for the technology and software sectors. And that is why we stopped by the studio to talk about with WeXL back in October.
Watch WeXL's latest Youtube series, Represent
This fall, I was invited to speak at a roundtable with other community creative and diversity leaders. I shared a lot about how I personally feel empowered by Autodesk to help drive the diversity mission and what tangible things we do to create a more inclusive work environment.
Some of these include music produced with local LGBTQ artists at FlightPDX, video editing opportunities with DACA students, and working with post-incarceration developers to use technology to further important conversations around inclusion.
I’m proud of the work we’ve done.
And I’m proud that we aren’t just sponsoring or making donations – we as employees of Autodesk are making a difference in the work we do. We’re building portfolios and making great quality work together.
Below is that discussion. This is the latest premiered episode of REPRESENT, WeXL's Youtube series on diversity. I’m featured in the first segment. Though I encourage you to watch the rest with Clay Hodges and Kayla Choates. Those are two amazing young individuals following their passion and forging their own paths to creative success. It was truly an honor to meet them all.
So what's next?
Next up for WeXL and Forge is Forge DevCon! We'll have the WeXL crew there. So if you see a bunch of professionals with cameras having way too much fun doing their jobs, come say hi.