In 2019, Dell Technologies conceived its Mentor Connect program. This initiative aims to offer mentoring, leadership, and networking opportunities for professionals in Singapore, particularly women, which will harness the strengths and networks in the industry.
During that time, the Mentor Connect program was piloted with only eight mentors from Dell and three other participating companies, Singapore’s IMDA (Infocomm Media Development Authority), Salesforce, and ST Engineering.
This time, with the launch of its 2023 edition, its fourth edition since its launch, this cross-company and women-centric mentorship program has grown to involve already nearly 50 mentors from 11 companies, benefitting 276 women mentees.
Some companies that recently joined this initiative include Aon, Google Cloud, DBS, DXC Technology, J.P. Morgan, Equinix, NTT Singapore, Prudential, and SCWO (Singapore Council of Women’s Organisation).
What the program is about
Dell’s Mentor Connect program brings together a select group of the company’s customers and partners to push forward a diverse leadership development through networking and company-to-company best practices exchange.
Through this program, various mentors from the participating organizations are asked to help mentees cultivate hard and soft skills that will, in turn, help them advance to the following stages of their careers.
Solving problems
Subsequently, Dell’s Mentor Connect program is helping solve problems in the technology industry. Andy Sim, the vice president and managing director of Dell Technologies Singapore, has shared how this happens.
Sim said he had seen the struggles women in the industry face, a reason why he keeps promoting the success of Dell’s Mentor Connect initiative.
He cited data showing that women only make up less than half of the workforce in the tech industry, and only 14 percent of women serve on the boards of tech companies in Singapore. He added this is because of various factors, such as gender bias, Asian cultural and sociological factors, lack of role models, unconscious bias, and imposter syndrome. These are what the program aims to address.
The Mentor Connect program works with different stakeholders and organizations from other industries to strengthen women’s representation in the tech sector. The mentors and mentees have gained the advantage of learning from each other and doing their part in realizing the goal of developing their roles in the industry.
Nod from the government
Interestingly, Dell’s Mentor Connect program has also gained support from the Singaporean government. Josephine Teo, Singapore’s Minister for Communications and Information, was present during the kick-off event of the program’s 2023 edition and said there is “a lot of value” from initiatives that support women toward leadership roles, specifically in the technology sector.
Teo said, “The essence of a successful mentorship program is the creation of structures and processes around which people can access wisdom not through luck, but through systematic intervention,” she added. By all accounts, MentorConnect is doing that…”
