In 2023, I joined the first cohort of Up:skill Women in Tech, a programme organised by the Cambodia Academy of Digital Technology (CADT), Digital Transformation Center Cambodia (DTC), and GIZ.

The programme brought together women from different backgrounds and career stages for sessions on technology, professional development, leadership, and other parts of working life.

I didn’t join because I was looking for a community.

I joined because I saw a session on corporate social responsibility.

At the time, I was working on a foreign investment project and expanding a dataset on companies involved in CSR activities in Cambodia. Most of my previous exposure to CSR had been through the civil society side, so I was curious about how companies themselves understood it.

I wanted to hear a different perspective.

That was the reason I signed up.

I didn’t know that the session would eventually lead me somewhere else.

I came for the content. I stayed for the room.

Every weekend, we learned from different experts and then had space to talk with one another.

The CSR session may have been what first brought me into the room, but it was not the only reason I kept coming back.

Each session offered something different—new ideas, practical exercises, conversations about technology and careers, and moments that made me reflect on my own work and growth.

Looking back, I think I learned in more than one way—through the sessions, through the work we did together, and through the people I met along the way.

What stayed with me wasn’t only what we learned.

It was the room.

There were women who were just starting their careers and women who were already leading teams. There were people from different sectors, generations and professional experiences.

Yet, somehow, the usual distance between senior and junior felt smaller.

People shared openly.

There wasn’t much pressure to have the perfect answer or to present yourself as someone who already had everything figured out.

You could simply talk about what you had experienced.

I found myself looking forward to those weekends.

There was something about being around women who could talk honestly about work, ambition, uncertainty and life that felt different.

The session I still remember

One session about self-love has stayed with me.

The conversation moved beyond the usual professional topics.

Women talked about their experiences as girls, as women, as leaders and as junior staff. Some shared things that were difficult. Others listened.

There was very little judgement.

What struck me was how people seemed to value one another not by their title or position, but by how far they had come.

For a few hours, nobody needed to prove that they deserved to be there.

We were simply women trying to understand ourselves and our lives a little better.

I think that was one of the first times I consciously noticed how much the design of a space affects what people are willing to bring into it.

People can know a lot and still remain quiet.

They can have good ideas and still hesitate to share them.

They can be capable of leading and still wonder whether they are good enough.

Sometimes what changes that is not another lesson.

Sometimes it is the room.

And eventually, that room became a place where we had to build something together.

Later in the programme, we were divided into groups and asked to develop a project.

Our team brought together women from different sectors and different stages of life. We had our jobs, responsibilities and busy schedules outside the programme, but somehow we found a way to work together.

We came up with an idea for Women and Tech Talks, a podcast concept to connect Cambodian women in technology and create more opportunities for professional women and younger girls to learn from one another.

We worked through the details together: the purpose, format, language, platforms and how the idea could continue beyond the programme.

We didn’t begin the project thinking about awards.

But when the results were announced, our team received the Best Project Initiative award.

I was happy, of course.

But another moment surprised me even more.

Someone noticed me

I was nominated for the Ideator Award, recognising participants who actively shared and expressed ideas during the programme.

I hadn’t expected it.

In my working life, I tend to pay more attention to the work itself—to the team, the project, the problem we are trying to solve, and what could be improved.

I don’t usually enter a room thinking about whether someone will notice me.

So being nominated made me pause.

It made me wonder what other people had seen in me that I hadn’t noticed in myself.

At that point in my life, I was carrying many different roles.

I was a team leader. A project manager. A wife. A mother.

There were always things to deliver and people to think about.

From the outside, I probably looked like I was simply getting on with things.

But being recognised reminded me that the things we quietly do—sharing an idea, helping a team move forward, making a connection, speaking up when something matters—can also be visible to someone else.

Sometimes we don’t realise we are being seen.

I left with more than I came for

Looking back, I still remember the CSR session that first brought me into Up:skill.

It gave me a perspective I was looking for.

But it wasn’t the most important thing I took away.

I also left with memories of women speaking honestly, working together and encouraging one another – and with a little more belief in myself.

I joined because I wanted to learn something.

Somewhere along the way, I found a community.

At the time, I thought that might be where the story ended.

It wasn’t.