Nicole Pitter Patterson

A senior international development advisor with 20+ years of expertise, Nicole has focused her career on international development for micro-businesses, women’seconomic empowerment and #techforgood advocacy.

Nicole is Co-Founder/Director SheLeadsIT a social enterprise focused on women’s economic empowerment with the premier initiative Caribbean Girls Hack, focused on bridging the gender digital divide in the Caribbean, engaging and upskilling girls and young women across a total of 16 countries since 2017 engaging 5,000 participants to date, in collaboration with RSC Tech Clubs. Since 2018 she has served as a member of the International Telecommunications Union (Switzerland) EQUALS Global Partnership digital working groups - the EQUALS Skills Coalition and the EQUALS Policy Working Group, focused on designing global initiatives to bridge the digital gender divide, and served as a judge for the global IBM #CodetheCurve #tech4good competition. Caribbean Girls Hack is a supporting partner on the creation of the EQUALS #HERDigitalSkills hands-on training, with mentorship of Caribbean young women over the past three years. In May 2019, she received the #FacesforEquality award by Global Affairs Canada, recognizing the work of SheLeadsIT - Caribbean Girls Hack, for outstanding contribution to the empowerment of women and girls in Technology and Innovation in Jamaica. A digital gender gap audit was conducted as part of the World Wide Web Foundation Women Rights Online Scorecard in Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago. SheLeadsIT – Caribbean Girls Hack was a Grantee of the GIZ #eSkills4Girls Fund 2020, and Global Affairs Canada – Canada Fund for Local Initiatives Jamaica 2020 & Caribbean 2020 supporting digital skills hackathons across the region.

She is a member of the Internet Society, Jamaica and is a Board Member of Caribbean Women in Trade and the Organization of Women in International Trade (OWIT), UK; and is an Advisory member of the Women’s EntrepreneurialNetwork Caribbean (WENC) and the Africa Caribbean Pacific Young Professional’s Network (ACPYPN). She also serves as a member of the WIDE+ Gender and Trade Working Group.

Nicole has worked with international donor agencies – USAID Washington/Caribbean and the International Trade Centre UN, Switzerland and is a Consultant on Women’s Economic Empowerment in the Caribbean, Africa and the MENA region. She holds an M.A. in Regional Economic Development at Northeastern University, U.S.A., with a B.A. in Economics at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica and is a Certified Expert in Financial Inclusion, Frankfurt University, Germany.