32 BCBUSINESS APRIL 2019
A L I C I A C L O S E
Founder and CEO
WOMEN IN TECH WORLD
AGE: 28
LIFE STORY: Alicia Close has
loved math since she was a child,
when her father, a self-employed
financial adviser, would have her
solve tough problems during car
rides. Close, who was born in North
Vancouver and raised near Toronto,
earned a
BBA from Wilfrid Laurier
University, majoring in finance and
international business. She began her
career in 2011 at mutual fund firm
AGF
Investments in Toronto, working with
international clients on the reporting
side. "What I always look at and lean
toward is looking at the data to see
how it can help and how it can make
an impact," Close says.
She returned to Vancouver in 2015
to join global identity and business
verification outfit Trulioo, helping to
build its data team and managing
customer support. The following
year, she and Elena Yugai founded
non-profit advocacy group Women in
Tech World (WiTWorld) and launched
Women in Tech Week, which grew to
seven cities in 2017. The event was a
success, but Close saw a knowledge
gap: data about female participation
in the tech sector was from the U.S.
"[I] wanted to focus on understanding
what was happening in Canada to
support women further," she recalls.
So in late 2017, WiTWorld
assembled more than 150 volunteers,
and Close and
COO Melanie Ewan
embarked on a national tour in a 1991
Winnebago. In two months, they held
community conversations with some
1,600 female and male Canadians.
"It's such a wide landscape but quite
a small tech community," says Close,
who also works as a data consultant.
BOTTOM LINE : Last October,
WiTWorld released Canada's Gender
Equity Roadmap, a report focusing
on the five major barriers faced by
women in tech, the resources avail-
able to them and an action plan for
change. It followed that study with a
similar report for B.C. This year, the
group will launch virtual peer-to-peer
mentoring for women across the
country, and there are plans for a
Netherlands tour. –N.R.
V A L E R I E S O N G
Co-founder and CEO
AVA TECHNOLOGIES
AGE: 26
LIFE STORY: Everyone and
their sister wants what Valerie
Song is cooking, and she has no
problem making them wait so the
product is as good as it can be. Since
Song drew up the designs for
AVA
(Automated Vertical Agriculture)
Technologies' flagship invention,
(From left)
Alicia Close, Valerie
Song, Alex Wan,
Carlton Ee and Mia
Fiona Kut
