I would say Janice is on fire. Despite setbacks, she always pushes forward and is committed to our mission to retain women in the tech workforce and increase the number of women and girls pursuing a career in the tech industry.

Trisha Melnik, ChickTech operations and finance director

The tech industry shoved Janice Levenhagen-Seeley into a box.

The walls of that box? Harassment. Oppression. Discrimination. Sexism. And, of course, a glass ceiling. So she left.

Five years later, from her modest, somewhat cramped shared nonprofit office in downtown Portland, the 34-year-old founder and CEO of ChickTech pulls out a different type of box: a cardboard container with the firms pink and brown logo printed on the top flap. She props it open and points to the contents:

USB cable, felt, fabric, sewing supplies, multicolored LED lights, snaps, conductive thread and a LilyPad Arduino.

Never heard of a LilyPad Arduino? Its a sewable microcontroller that lets you embed lights, sounds and sensors into clothing and accessories. All girls enrolled in ChickTech workshops receive this box and learn to code.

Levenhagen-Seeley started ChickTech in Portland in 2012 to increase the number of women and girls pursuing technology-based careers and retain them by building a support network. The program, which includes high school workshops held in 20 cities, is built for girls who dont think of themselves as technical but who have the aptitude to do well in tech. The participants, who are 57 percent nonwhite, enter the program through nominations by their high school teachers.

They go from knowing absolutely nothing [about code] to designing something and creating it, Levenhagen-Seeley says. Basically, theyre learning embedded programming. Its super-advanced.

One hundred girls will participate this year in Portland, and 2,400 will participate nationwide. The energy at the start of these high school workshops is nervous but excited.

Levenhagen-Seeley is straightforward and frank, sugar-coating nothing about the realities of technology careers for women, while glancing occasionally at email notifications on her Apple watch. A Wisconsin native who grew up on a dairy farm, she became a teen mom at 17 and obtained a computer engineering degree at 22. That led to a coding job at what she refers to as the worst company in the world. She was good at what she didvery goodbut the degrading, sexist culture at her workplace drove her away.

So, with real conviction, she decided to help reduce the chances other girls and women would be discouraged from entering the tech workforce. ChickTech now includes a nationwide network of participants, instructors and volunteers, and a national conference called ACT-W (Advancing the Careers of Technical Women). Funding from corporate partners, including a large grant from the Adobe Foundation, has allowed programming to flourish under Levenhagen-Seeleys leadership and intense drive.

ChickTech offers the type of support Levenhagen-Seely didnt have as a young professional.

I was able to use my negative experiences to craft positive ones, she says. We build a welcoming, supportive community that allows girls to be proud of who they are and what they bring to the table.

Bottom Line for Portland

Every year, Levenhagen-Seeley exposes 100 or more girls in 24 cities to tech opportunities, instilling confidence and skills so they can enter tech careers and contribute to a supportive community of female leaders.

This prize is generously sponsored by Beneficial State Bank.