Inspirational Women Series
  • đŸ”„ BEST
    • Mail Order Bride Sites
  • WOMEN BY COUNTRY
    • Slavic Women
    • European Women
      • Croatian Women
      • Slovakian Women
    • Latin Women
      • Brazilian Women
      • Filipino women
      • Cuban Women
      • Guatemalan Women
      • Costa Rican Women
      • Uruguay Women
      • Cambodia Women
      • Chilean Women
      • Ecuadorian Women
      • El Salvador Women
      • Panamanian Women
      • Venezuelan Women
  • BRIDES BY COUNTRY
    • Ukrainian Mail Order Bride
    • Russian Mail Order Bride
    • Japanese Mail Order Bride
    • Filipino Mail Order Bride
    • Korean Mail Order Bride
    • Chinese Mail Order Bride
    • Thai Mail Order Bride
    • Mexican Mail Order Bride
    • Brazilian Mail Order Bride
    • Colombian Mail Order Bride
  • BLOG
    • Best Countries to Find a Foreign Wife
  • COMPANY
    • About Us
    • Our Team
      • Samuel Chavez
      • Oliver Duncan
      • Michael Krakowski
    • Our Privacy Policy
    • Terms and Conditions
Home » Inspirational Woman Interview: Jessica Ou (September 10, 2014)

Inspirational Woman Interview: Jessica Ou (September 10, 2014)

Thelma Harlan
Updated: 26/11/2021
7 min read

3defd66

Jessica Ou is an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. She is interested in finance, strategy, technology, international relations, and social entrepreneurship. Passionate about women’s empowerment, Jessica has served as Peer Educator at UC Berkeley’s Gender Equity and Resource Center, Head of Marketing inBerkeley Women in Business, and as a Volunteer Intern at the Women’s Economic Agenda Project. Furthermore, she recently founded an organization called Girls Run Tech, which aims to bridge the gap for women (both technical and non-technical) in the technology industry through community, mentorship, and partnerships with technology companies. Jessica was awarded the 2014 Women of Peace Award, which recognizes individuals that are working on cutting edge programs, or have created new ways of thinking about ending domestic violence or waging peace.

Women LEAD: What is your background?

Jessica Ou: I am a junior student studying Business, Social Welfare, and Economics at UC Berkeley. My interests lie in finance, strategy, technology, international relations, and social entrepreneurship.

At Berkeley, I’ve been involved in many women’s projects as Head of Marketing inBerkeley Women in Business, a Peer Educator for the Gender Equity Resource Center, and a member of the student government Sexual Assault Task Force.

Outside of my school involvements, I am an Executive Council member of theInternational Youth Council–founded at the United Nations Youth Assembly–which mobilizes over 5,000 youth from around the world, and an Advisory Board Member forUNICEF’s Chinese Children Initiative. I also serve on the Youth Advisory Council of theCrisis Text Line, a subsidiary of DoSomething.org, the world’s largest youth action organization. Recently, I was chosen to be the National Youth Ambassador for California for Youth Service America, and will work with the California senator’s office to execute a financial literacy program for girls. This past summer, I attended the United Nations Youth Assembly as a delegate, and will be traveling to Moscow in the coming month as a delegate for the Stanford U.S.-Russia Forum.

I’m also very passionate about technology, and I currently work at Greylock Partners and am a USA Google Student Ambassador. In the past, I’ve worked at Uber, KPMG, andEuclid Analytics. Recently, I’ve conducted organizational behavioral research for the Haas School of Business and big data crowdfunding research for the MIT Sloan School of Management.

I’ve been designing and coding since I was six years old and run my own web design company. In my free time, I blog for the Huffington Post and am a contributing writer for USA Today.

Women LEAD: You formerly interned at the Women‘s Economic Agenda Project. Can you tell us more about your experiences?

Jessica Ou: Volunteering with the Women’s Economic Agenda Project (WEAP) was one of the most eye-opening experiences for me. As a local non-profit in Oakland, CA, working with a ground-roots organization was a great experience. I had the chance to learn from people have been through great struggles in their lives and overcome them through the teach-ins and workshops that the Women’s Economic Agenda Project holds. I was very close to directly seeing the impact of the organization’s efforts. Working with WEAP set the foundation for my passion in gender equity and human rights, and made me motivated to work even harder to propel change for impoverished women.

What was most inspirational for me was the people I met while volunteering there. One staff member, Carolyn Milligan, spent her entire life fighting for a better life for working people after overcoming some severe personal obstacles in the whole process. She moved to Oakland 20 years ago after becoming blind from inadequate medical care, which also forced her into kidney dialysis. It is women like Carolyn that inspire me to work to relieve women out of poverty and structural discrimination.

Women LEAD: You were also a Peer Educator at the Gender Equity and Resource Center. Can you tell us more about this role?

Jessica Ou: I have been involved at the Gender Equity Resource Center at UC Berkeley as a volunteer intern and peer educator. As a peer educator, I raised discussion about inclusivity, diversity, and anti-bullying on campus. My role was to identify a problem in the LGBTQ and Women’s community on campus. I worked with a team of other peer educators in identifying that there was a gap in communication between LGBTQ and women’s organizations on campus, and planned and held a “Mind the Gap: Cross-Cultural Collaboration” event on campus, inviting all LGBTQ and women’s organizations to join in conversation and networking. As a volunteer intern, I dedicated my time in marketing various women’s programs and empowerment events on campus. My focus and goal working with the Gender Equity Resource Center was to create a more inclusive environment for women and LGBTQ students on campus.

Women LEAD: You served as the Head of Marketing for UC Berkeley Women in Business. Why is empowering women pursuing business-related paths important to you?

Jessica Ou: Women leaders such as Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi and Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer are constantly under microscopic scrutiny purely because of their gender, while other males CEOS are less watched and less criticized. It’s stereotypes about leadership that a woman has to overcome in the work place. I think that there are two important things for women in business–the first is mentorship, and the second is having a community of other female businesswomen as a support system.

Women LEAD: Why does empowering women in entrepreneurship matter to you?

Jessica Ou: I think the statistics concerning women in entrepreneurship are startling. 92% of startup founders are male, and only 8% are female. This can be attributed to discrimination within the venture capital industry, stemming with lack of representation of successful female entrepreneurs. Investors are looking for the Mark Zuckerbergs of the Silicon Valley—the clear-cut, white males. Female entrepreneurs run into several obstacles relating to their gender, with some investors even looking to date female entrepreneurs rather than taking their company ideas seriously. It’s a perpetual cycle, because the less representation, the less investors take women seriously, and the more women hesitate to become entrepreneurs. I think it’s something that needs to change, and it has to start at the top with the investors.

Women LEAD: What, to you, are the biggest challenges to achieving gender equality in technology industries?

Jessica Ou: To me, I believe that the biggest challenge is overcoming preconceptions and stereotypes about women in technology. It’s been thought of for centuries that women are not meant to be in technology fields, but rather, men are. We’re still experiencing the ramifications of that type of thinking today, with women representing only one in ten computer science graduates. It’s always intimidating for women to enter into a field that is male-dominated. There is starting to be a slow shift with women’s networking groups and coding programs for girls, but it’s slow.

Women LEAD: Can you talk about one woman who has impacted you in your life?

Jessica Ou: One woman that has impacted my life was my Gender and Women Studies professor my freshman year, Professor Barnes. She taught me to look at everything that life throws at you from a critical perspective—to question everything and the situations around us. It made me look at everything differently—and once I started questioning things and understanding inequalities, I was more driven to fix them.

Original Women LEAD post found here.

Thelma Harlan
Thelma Harlan
Related Articles
Inspirational Woman Interview: Ruhy Patel (September 24, 2014)
Ruhy Patel is a high school senior and the Student Body President at Central Bucks High School in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Passionate about global relations and philanthropy, ...
Read more
Celebrating Women Changemakers Should Be A Concerted Effort (September 8, 2014)
Originally posted on The Huffington Post Recently, Marie Claire introduced a “20 Women Changing the World” magazine section in honor of its 20th anniversary. In ...
Read more
Inspirational Woman Interview: Jo Farrell (September 13, 2015)
Jo Farrell is an award-winning documentary photographer and cultural anthropologist based in Hong Kong. The creator and leader of Living History, which documents the lives ...
Read more
Inspirational Woman Interview: Kristyn Zalota (May 12, 2014)
Photo credit: Mission Motherhood Kristyn Zalota is the Founder of CleanBirth.org, a nonprofit organization that works to improve infant and maternal health in Laos. From 2008-2011, she worked ...
Read more

Since 2018, our team has helped thousands of American, Canadian, British, and Australian men understand online dating better and found a girlfriend/wife from another country.

COMPANY
  • Our Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions
  • About Us
  • Interview
ASIAN BRIDES FROM
  • đŸ‡”đŸ‡­ Philippines
  • đŸ‡ŻđŸ‡” Japan
  • 🇹🇳 China
  • đŸ‡°đŸ‡· South Korea
  • đŸ‡č🇭 Thailand
LATIN BRIDES FROM
  • đŸ‡§đŸ‡· Brazil
  • đŸ‡ČđŸ‡œ Mexico
  • 🇹🇮 Colombia
SLAVIC BRIDES FROM
  • đŸ‡ș🇩 Ukraine
  • đŸ‡·đŸ‡ș Russia
BEST DATING SITES
  • Mail Order Bride Sites
  • International Dating Sites
  • Filipino Dating Sites
  • Ukrainian Dating Sites
BLOG
  • Best Countries to Find a Foreign Wife
  • How to Get a Foreign Wife
WOMEN BY REGION
  • Latin Women
  • Slavic Women
  • European Women
Contact info

US +1 877 421 18 08

UK +44 202 617 56 39

400 Grand St, Cellar, NY 10002, United States

For cooperation:
[email protected]

For additional questions:
[email protected]

© inspirationalwomenseries.org 2022 – All Rights Reserved.