- The annual SheTech event in Sandy aims to empower over 3,000 high school girls.
- Held on Feb. 24, the event introduces diverse STEM careers and technologies.
- Women make up 24% of Utah's STEM workforce; SheTech aims to increase this.
SANDY — For more than a decade, the Women Tech Council has been empowering young women to explore what a career in science, technology, engineering and math could mean for their futures.
The organization is preparing for its annual conference, where more than 3,000 high school girls from across Utah will convene at the Mountain America Expo Center in Sandy to learn about the diverse range of STEM careers and whether they want to pursue them.
The event scheduled for Feb. 24 isn't just for tech students; it's also for anyone interested in exploring future opportunities or unsure what they want to study in college, according to Utah's Women Tech Council.
SheTech Explorer Day is a free, hands-on tech event for high school girls to explore STEM careers and cutting-edge technology — including the rapidly growing field of artificial intelligence.
Cydni Tetro, co-founder and CEO of Women Tech Council, said the SheTech Explorer Day is designed to spark students' interest in technology at a time when they're beginning to consider which careers interest them.
"High school students are in the middle of taking in all the things around them to decide where they go for the future," she said. "The SheTech program really got architected around how do you give them tools at this critical moment in time and expose them to mentors, industry people, technologies that they would never have imagined — so that they can see how that works in their lives."
The daylong conference offers girls opportunities to connect with women who are already making strides in typically male-dominated fields.
"They see someone who they didn't know that they could even become, and then they say that changes everything for me and starts them on this journey of exploration," explained Tetro.
In its 13th year, Tetro said one of the most impactful things about the SheTech Explorer Day is seeing how it changes the trajectory of young female students' lives.
Roughly 75% of the students prior to the conference said they hadn't thought about a career in technology and nearly 90% come out wanting to strive for it, according to Tetro.
Ma'Asi Tuatonga, a senior at Taylorsville High School, said she was among the students unsure what she wanted to do after high school. Her interest in STEM began in her freshman year after a teacher mentioned the program and took her and several other students to the SheTech Explorer Day that year.
She was intrigued by what she saw and learned at the event and wanted to help bring a SheTech program to her school.
"There weren't many girls who knew about SheTech and who knew about the Explorer day and all the fun resources that they had. And so then I made it my goal to start something for the girls at my school," Tuatonga told KSL.
She later joined the SheTech student board to inspire other female students like her who are interested in tech and STEM.
Tuatonga said being a part of SheTech has helped her feel supported and inspired to pursue a career in STEM. After high school, she hopes to study neurological brain mapping and explore how it integrates with technology.
She believes students her age and younger can benefit from the conference, where they'll network with leaders from more than 100 companies to help them pursue their aspirations to become future innovators.
"I think Explorer Day is a huge thing, because there are so many different companies coming to present what they do and how they use tech and STEM," Tuatonga said, "And it shows girls so many different sorts of jobs, careers, like different programs that they can study in college."
The Women Tech Council's annual SheTech event appears to be taking place in a hot spot for STEM jobs. The Salt Lake City metro area ranks No. 8 among the best cities for STEM jobs, according to a January 2026 report by financial website WalletHub.
However, women only made up 24% of Utah's STEM workforce in 2023, according to research released by the Utah Women and Leadership Project in August 2025. Though it is a slight increase from 20% in 2019 and up from 17% just over a decade ago.
The Women Tech Council hopes events like SheTech continue to boost the number of women in STEM fields. According to Tetro, around 400 students who previously attended Explorer Day have gone on to pursue STEM careers after college.
"Our job is to continue to support the momentum and make it as amazing as possible, to drive the growth, because it continues to grow so strongly," she said.
Tetro said around 3,500 students are expected to attend SheTech Explorer Day this year. Registration is still open but filling up fast, high school girls who want to participate can visit shetechexplorer.com.
