ReBoot Teams up With 1871 to Bring Women Back Into Business After a Break

Karis Hustad - Staff writer

8/17/16 @2:20pm in Tech

Women are far more likely than men to take a break from their careers to take care of a child or another family member: a Pew study from 2013 found 39 percent of working mothers took off significant time to care for family, compared to 24 percent of men.

This career interruption can have lasting effects, including fewer advancement opportunities and a gender wage gap that persists over time.

ReBoot, a program from Silicon Valley coworking hub GSVlabs, aims to address that with their eight-session "career accelerator" that helps get women back in the workforce after taking a break through skills training and networking to get women back in the business groove. And this week ReBoot announced it is expanding its accelerator to 1871 this fall.

"The women we serve are a very talented but unfortunately sometimes overlooked pool of resources," said Patty White, cofounder of ReBoot accelerator to Chicago Inno. "Their experience, maturity and dependability are significant assets.  The fact of their participation in a program like ReBoot is a proof point of their 'growth mindset,' energy and serious interest in returning to work."

The eight-week program offers weekly sessions that cover topics from harnessing the power of LinkedIn to personal branding to productivity through Google tools. The final session features a panel discussion with executive recruiters and hiring managers to give advice on how to women can best position their time out of the workforce as an advantage. All instructors for the classes (except for the first session, which is taught by a ReBoot founder) are local, and come from companies such as LinkedIn, Social Deviant, Google, and Enjoy. ReBoot has an online job board, and 1871 has agreed to provide recruiting assistance.

The program will run September 20 to November 8, every Tuesday morning from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm. The program costs $795 through August 31st, then bumps up to $1,295. There's also an additional "Clarify Your Purpose and Passion" seminar on September 14 that costs $195.

It's a steep price for job training, but already 300 students have graduated from ReBoot in since GSV launched the program in the Bay Area in 2015. In their initial classes in Silicon Valley, just under 65 percent of women who took the class with the intent to return to work did so within three months of the program. White also said they've noticed a pattern: about one-third are interested in starting their own business or freelancing, another third return to a social impact career, and the final third are interested in large companies.

White said that once ReBoot started getting national press attention, Chicago was one of the cities with significant response to a query posted on their website: "Do you want ReBoot in your city?" Last spring they held an initial sold-out program for 40 women out of Northwestern's Garage, and they're hoping to get a similar response for the program at 1871.

Chicago is the second location where ReBoot is expanding its accelerator, and ReBoot is also adding locations in Seattle and New York City this fall.

“We are overwhelmed with interest from women who want to return to work, but don’t know where to start,” said ReBoot cofounder Diane Flynn in a a statement. “By giving them a high-tech, high-touch experience, we greatly increase their confidence and connections."

“At 1871, we believe that you can’t have innovation without inclusion,” added 1871 COO, Tom Alexander. “We want our community to be reflective of the rich diversity that exists in Chicago and the ReBoot Career Accelerator aids in that mission. This new addition to the private education programs at 1871 helps to change the conversation around women in technology, and shines a light on the access to resources available to the growing ecosystem of women pursuing entrepreneurship.”

Note: Updated with quotes from ReBoot's Patty White.