“It’s always good to come home”, said Paula Panarra, Director of Microsoft Portugal, as she arrived at the Alumni Talks, an event organised by NAPE-IST– Student Support Unit at Instituto Superior Técnico. Besides Paula Panarra, several other successful Técnico alumnae attended the event to share experiences and give advice to the current female students.

For about two hours, the participants shared their professional and academic experiences in an informal atmosphere. “Above all, we talked about the challenges of being a woman and having a career, and the choices that we have to make”, said Isabel Guerreiro, Senior Director at Santander Totta.

According to Filipa Neves, a computer engineering student, “having this opportunity to contact with people who have succesful careers is very important, as well as to hear their advices and understand how to make decisions”.

The role of women in the labour market was also approached and engineering as a male-dominated profession was desmystified. According to Isabel Guerreiro “it’s up to us, as women, to change this perspective and we are doing it”. The idea was complemented by Cristina Fonseca, co-founder of Talkdesk: “People will judge you by your actions, not your intentions”.

“To risk”, “to believe” and “to innovate” were the most used verbs during the session. “The world will embrace diversity and balance. Don’t give up because there are many things to be done”, said the Director of Microsoft Portugal.

Besides Paula Panarra, Cristina Fonseca and Isabel Guerreiro, also Ana Dias Fonseca, co-founder of biosurfit, Joana Novais, Senior Business Planning Analyst at Novartis, and several Técnico professors attended this session.

At the end of the session, Filipa Neves shares one advice she got from one of the alumnae: “do what you want, don’t feel pressured to do things you are supposed to do. You must always act on your feelings.”