Alicia Chen is a co-founder at CoProcure, a marketplace for local government purchasing ("amplifying the impact of taxpayer dollars"). She was previously at Microsoft, Dropbox, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Outside of work you can find her reading (low brow fantasy literature), crafting (knit/crochet, etc), and hanging out with her two kids.
Especially for the WomenTech Network, Alicia agreed to give an interview and share her story.
Join the Women in Tech Global Conference 2022 to hear Alicia's talk "When “Don’t Be Evil” Isn’t Good Enough: A Framework to Evaluate Your Next Opportunity in Social Impact Technology", and other inspiring sessions.
Are you excited to be among the speakers at the Women in Tech Global Conference 2022 and what motivated you to join our community of 100 000 women in tech, minorities, and allies?
I'm excited to join the other amazing women who are speaking at this conference. I first heard of WomenTech Network from a fellow woman engineer who was on my team, and recommended I check it out!
Share with us about your background, your journey in tech, and what inspired you to develop your career in this direction?
I first learned to code when I was 19 in a beginner college class. It was pretty intimidating because it felt like everyone else who was coding (all guys) had been doing it since they were 10 years old. However, the course at my school was very friendly to newcomers, and I found it very fun. From there I went on to intern and work full time at Microsoft, where I worked on low-level systems codings like display drivers and networking.
I left Microsoft to join Dropbox, back when it was an unknown entity. I was actually the first female software engineer there and saw it scale from about 70 employees to over 2000. While I was there, I made the transition to engineering management and worked on lots of initiatives from diversity to the intern program. After some years there, I grew dissatisfied with the impact of my work. At the end of the day, productivity software was about eking out tiny percentages of additional efficiency from white-collar workers. What was the meaning of it all? So I quit to join the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Mark and Priscilla's philanthropic effort. There I played a variety of tech roles in everything from criminal justice reform to early childhood education. I learned a lot, but my big takeaway was that if you want to move the needle, you have to go through the government. I left CZI to figure out how to do that in the most high-leverage, impactful way.
After an extensive search, I ultimately decided to co-found my own startup CoProcure. This was quite an adventure since my youngest son was only 6 months old at that time. But I've had an awesome time, building a very diverse team that is creating an online marketplace to transform the way state and local governments spend $2T/yr of taxpayer dollars to purchase goods and services.
Who would you advise to attend the Women in Tech Global Conference and why?
I think this conference is a great opportunity to meet other women in technology and learn from each other. I think women from all functions and career stages should have the chance to join in.
🎤 In her #WTGC2022 session "When “Don’t Be Evil” Isn’t Good Enough: A Framework to Evaluate Your Next Opportunity in Social Impact Technology", Alicia Chen will share her thoughts and learnings from exploring the intersection of social impact and technology, which led her to co-found CoProcure. She will also discuss the importance of getting more mission-oriented and provide questions to help you evaluate opportunities.
