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If you live in Silicon Valley and you are a woman working in technology, then you’ve undoubtedly heard of the YWCA Golden Gate Silicon Valley Tribute to Women Awards. An annual event founded in 1984, the Golden Gate Silicon Valley Tribute to Women 2022 has honored 55 exceptional women of achievement and influence in their respective fields, including the technology, healthcare, education, nonprofit, and business sectors. Among the honorees this year are five women from Synopsys who represent a variety of functional areas at the company.
The awards ceremony was live streamed on May 12, 2022, the date notable because it was also Florence Nightingale’s birthday. More on Nightingale in a bit. Before we introduce you to the amazing Synopsys honorees and what they are doing today, we thought you might be interested in a little history of the YWCA and its mission to eliminate racism and empower women.
The YWCA Longstanding History of Supporting Women
The seeds of the YWCA come from Lady Mary Jane Kinnaird and Emma Robarts over 160 years ago. Kinnaird had created a hostel for nurses in England in 1855 and her philanthropy helped to train Nightingale’s nurses during the Crimean War, 1853 to 1856, a brutal conflict resulting in the death of an estimated 650,000 people.
It was during this conflict that Nightingale pioneered the field of nursing. She was a whiz at math and statistics and also a pioneer in explaining relationships and trends through graphical representation of data. Through her experience and observations of the appalling sanitation conditions of wartime hospitals in the 1850s, she ultimately established that sanitary conditions were critical to medical outcomes and public health overall, saving countless lives.
In 1877 Kinnaird merged her London organization with a group founded by Emma Robarts who conducted Christian prayer circles for young women to help navigate the significant changes of the industrial revolution. Together the two women co-founded the YWCA, and it grew rapidly in popularity with local chapters around the world. In 1894, the World YWCA was formed by Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, and the United States.
1919 YWCA Poster (Mcmein, Neysa, Artist. Y.W.C.A. In service for the girls of the world / McMein. United States, 1919. New York: American Lithographic Co.)
Today the World YWCA organization is in over 100 countries to “mobilize the power of millions of women, young women, and girls from across regions, cultures, and beliefs to transform their lives and the world, for the better.” The YWCA USA today is focusing on racial justice and civil rights, empowerment and economic advancement, and health and safety. The YWCA Golden Gate Silicon Valley chapter offers vital programs and services to the community, including therapy, support services, employment programs, education and outreach services, and much more.
What Is the YWCA Golden Gate Silicon Valley Tribute to Women Awards?
In the spirit of the YWCA ethos, the Golden Gate Silicon Valley Tribute to Women is a fundraising event that supports the Bay Area chapter’s work. It honors women of impact and corporations that empower women at all levels of the workforce. Here’s a short introduction to each of our Synopsys employees honored at this year’s event, including their words of wisdom for other aspiring women:
Sifin Cherupilly Abdulkarim, Engineering Manager
Sifin was awarded this honor as an emerging leader. She leads a CAD engineering team that contributes to supporting and managing the compute farm infrastructure for Synopsys IP. The world-wide compute farm contains over 100,000 CPU cores that serve over 5,000 users who run over a billion jobs a year. Sifin supervises a team, building internal tools and maintaining systems that enable the development and release
of over 1,000 Synopsys IP product versions annually.
My message to women beginning their careers in tech is to be open, be a sponge, and develop a mindset to be a lifelong learner….It is important to be patient during this journey as we are in a marathon and not a sprint.
Radha Bhaman, Vice President, Human Resources, Software Integrity Group
Radha began her career in advertising, after receiving an MBA from the Xavier Institute of Management in India. She has over 30 years of strategic leadership experience in the Human Resources space and is particularly passionate about fostering emerging talent within her team. She has two adult daughters, who live in the Bay Area and New York City. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with them and in nature.
Women as a group are a very powerful collective and can be very supportive as we lift and grow one another. For me personally as a leader, mentoring has been a very satisfying experience. And my philosophy at the end of the day is that with your hard-fought wins, be generous with how you share it.
Aurelia De Colle, Group Director, Silicon Realization Group
Aurelia leads the strategic programs and product business development for the Hardware, Analytics and Test ‘HAT’ organization at Synopsys. Her role includes overseeing and leading key technical field operations and business engineering. Her technical solutions background is the foundation for establishing productive, long-lasting collaborations and effective leadership to organize, structure, and mentor cross-functional teams worldwide.
Women need to continuously lift each other up by sharing their success stories…women can get stronger and happier together by learning from each other and inspiring each other.
Jill Harding, Vice President, Corporate Planning
Jill runs the global tax, treasury, and corporate planning functions of Finance at Synopsys. Jill also serves on Synopsys’ Inclusion & Diversity Council. She is a dedicated mother of two girls, an active board member of the Los Altos Educational Foundation, and adjunct faculty in the Masters of Taxation program at San Jose State University.
Always remain focused on expanding and deepening your knowledge base. Knowledge is powerful at any stage of your career….Reflect on wisdom imparted by others along the way and pay it forward to others wherever you can.
Vidyullatha Murthy, Group Director, Emulation and Prototype Platform Solutions
Vidyullatha leads product evaluation, deployment, customer support, and customer training for emulation and prototype platform solutions. She applies her 25+ years of experience, helping accelerate prototyping and emulation solution adoption and successfully deploying emulators and prototyping to end customers. She is passionate about using technology to help special-needs children and to foster inclusion and diversity.
To me, women empowerment is all about inspiring our younger women to become passionate engineers, to help and mentor them to be great leaders, and to cheer and appreciate each other all along the way.
Congratulations to All of the YWCA Golden Gate Silicon Valley Tribute to Women Honorees
So now that you know a little more about the organization and the Synopsys honorees, you know that the Tribute to Women is a very big deal, delivering a rich legacy of empowerment to a whole new generation of women. Congratulations to the Synopsys recipients of the Golden Gate Silicon Valley YWCA Tribute to Women award and to all of the 2022 honorees.
Learn more about Synopsys diversity and inclusion.
Learn more about the YWCA Golden Gate Silicon Valley.