Q&A with Rashim Mogha, Founder - eWOW, Keynote Speaker, Startup Advisor, Women in Tech Evangelist, Author, Podcaster
Media 7 | May 25, 2020
Rashim Mogha, Founder - eWOW, Keynote Speaker, Startup Advisor, Women in Tech Evangelist, Author, and Podcaster empowers professionals by articulating complex technology capabilities into crisp, clear, and attainable business benefits. Her extensive career portfolio includes leadership roles in companies such as Oracle, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and VMware where she built high-performing teams to support over $2 billion businesses.
A recipient of Women Empowerment: Game Changer, Woman of the Year, and Silicon Valley Woman of Influence awards, Rashim has been a keynote speaker at global conferences and organizations.
MEDIA 7: Could you tell us about your role at eWOW and the event properties you are responsible for?
RM: eWOW (empowered Women of the World) is an intellectual platform that empowers women to discover, visualize, and actualize their success. The platform comprises of podcasts, webinars, in-person and online events, the virtual incubator program and our eWOW Virtual Summit. Being the founder of eWOW, I am responsible for all these events.
M7: With most planned events going online, what do you think of the future events? Will you buckle up for a permanent change into virtual events?
RM: Well, we had planned for the eWOW Virtual Summit to be an online event, even before COVID-19. Our mission is to enable women globally and you can’t really do that without hosting a global event. I have been an enablement leader for over 20 years and webinars and virtual events are not new to me. I think it is time now that events move to an online format to be inclusive. The reach of online events is huge, we had attendees from all 3 timezones in the US, Asia, Europe and even from Australia at the eWOW Virtual Summit. Infact our eWOW Virtual Incubator program that we launched is also a 4 week online program.
That said, there is merit in in-person events and those won’t go away. I do however see online events becoming more popular in the future.
"Now more than ever before, the world needs ideas that are socially profitable. And ideas need nurturing!"
M7: Are you pivoting to virtual events or planning to re-invest the money elsewhere?
RM: We are definitely all in when it comes to virtual events. We have several virtual workshops planned with corporate organizations. Infact our eWOW Virtual Incubator program that we launched is also a 4 week online program. Now more than ever before, the world needs ideas that are socially profitable. And ideas need nurturing!
The eWOW 2020 Virtual Incubator Program democratizes idea nurturing through the power of technology. It helps entrepreneurs to take their idea to the pitch stage.
M7: Are you facing security issues while organizing virtual events? What changes would you suggest to avoid cyber threats during vitual events?
RM:��We use Zoom Webinar solution for our virtual events. Given the security issues, we have implemented the registration process that allows only the approved registrants to attend the webinars. Enabling features like passwords and waiting room are some other ways to avoid security issues.
"There is merit in in-person events and those won’t go away."
M7: What day to day processes have you had to re-tool to be able to pull off your online events successfully? What does your tech stack look like?
RM: From a tech stack perspective, we use Eventbrite for tickets. For the actual event we use Zoom webinar and Slack for networking and for ondemand viewing we leverage Origin Learning’s Fractal portal. Media 7 was our exclusive media partner. We had to re-define the process and integrate these applications for online events. We also had to do multiple rounds of preprations with our speakers to ensure that they were comfortable with Zoom and Slack and the audience had a seemless experience. Infact the eWOW 2020 Virtual Summit was rated as the TOP 10 online events happening on April 25 by EventBrowse alongside Salesforce and Microsoft Azure events.
M7: How are your sponsors responding, and how are they customizing programs or sponsor packages?
RM: Of course there are COVID-19 reasons because of which many sponsors are hesitant to allocate money to sponsorships right now. They want to put the resources and dollars to keep the business running as opposed to sponsoring given the shakeup in businesses due to COVID-19. But the sponsors are embracing online events for enhancing their brand, scouting for talent, and keeping their employees motivated. eWOW 2020 Virtual Summit was sponsored by Linkedin Learning, Facebook, Origin Learning, Sureskills, KG Cloud Advisory, SocieteGenerale and Marsh Labs. Facebook loved the idea of eWOW summit being a virtual summit. For many sponsors, it was the only event that didn’t go through a format change because of COVID.
"It is time now that events move to an online format to be inclusive. The reach of online events is huge."
M7: Are you noticing any difference in the audience engagement comparing the virtual with in-person events?
RM: It is known that the audience enagement reduces in virtual events. However, there are various ways in which this can be addressed. For eWOW 2020 Virtual Summit, we built in interactivity in our 8 hr long summit. We had 14 sessions, 3 built in breaks, a parallel Slack channel for audience to network with their peers and speakers, and a virtual job lounge during lunch. This kept the audience engaged throughout the summit. We had attendees from countries like India who attended the entire summit even though it ended at 4:00 am India time.
M7: What was your strategy for promoting your virtual events, and how was the response?
RM: Our collaboration with Media 7 as our exclusive media partner worked very well. They promoted our event within their extensive network. We also leveraged LinkedIn and the eWOW podcast which has audience in over 35 countries to promote the event. The excitement around the event was huge and we had 50% of the tickets sold within the first week of announcing the summit.
ABOUT EWOW
eWOW – empowered Women of the World is a platform to empower women around the world to discover, visualize, and actualize their success. We believe that every woman is a leader in her own way – all she needs is an intellectual framework that can help her navigate the path. eWOW provides that intellectual platform to help them with their technical and leadership skills to be successful, to thrive!