Proud Of Pride

Claudia attended the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in 1997 and achieved an MS in Administration. She is known as one of the most powerful gay women in business and is vice president at IBM and a supports many LGBT+ networks. Coming out as a lesbian is something that Claudia is proud of and has contributed to many diversity programmes in the workplace and books. She has helped LGBT+ diversity in business which has led to IBM sponsoring over 40 diversity networks across 30 countries. Claudia is also a board member of Out & Equal which is a group that campaigns for workplace equality.

You may know Angelica Ross for her roles in “Pose” and “American Horror Story” but did you know she’s also a self-taught coder? Angelica is the founder of TransTech Social Enterprises, an incubator for LGBTQ+ talent in tech with a focus on transgender innovators. The company was started with the mission to help those in marginalized communities lift themselves out of poverty through tech training and work.

Karissa Y. Sanbonmatsu is an American structural biologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. She works on the mechanism of non-coding RNA complexes including the ribosome, riboswitches, long non-coding RNAs, as well as chromatin. She was the first to perform an atomistic simulation of the ribosome, determine the secondary structure of an intact lncRNA and to publish a one billion atom simulation of a biomolecular complex. She is a proud transwoman.

Dr Aqsa Shaikh is a medical doctor and Community Medicine Specialist. She is Associate Professor of Community Medicine at HIMSR, Jamia Hamdard, Delhi. Born and brought up in Mumbai, she completed her education from Seth GS Medical College. Before joining Jamia Hamdard, she has worked at HLFPPT. She lives in Delhi now for last ten years and calls it home. She is a Proud Transgender Woman and works on LGBTQIA+ rights, rights of Persons with Disability, and Mental Health.

One of the best-known LGBTQ+ tech people of all time, Tim Cook stands out as one of the most powerful people in the world. Named Apple CEO in 2011, Tim previously served as the Chief Operating Officer for the brand. Once he came out publicly as gay, he became the first openly gay CEO on the Fortune 500. According to Tim, he felt it was essential to come out and support the gay community. Tim noted that being gay has been painful and uncomfortable for him at times. However, it also gave him the confidence to be himself and follow the path that he believes in.