While today’s society has made significant gains toward transforming spaces into more inclusive and diverse ones, it remains true that women and minorities continue to be at a disadvantage. Subjected to more scrutiny and pushed to work twice as hard as their more privileged peers, they prove a testament to the fact that more strides are needed to be made. Critical to this fervently hoped-for advancement are the efforts of those like Ave Tarend, who are demonstrating that any field can be conquered, regardless of people’s age, gender, and background. A senior software engineer, wife, and mother of three boys, the multifaceted personality bears a story urging women to boldly enter any industry they wish to dominate and translate their dreams into reality. 

Ave Tarend came from humble beginnings, growing up in the countryside on a farm in Estonia, a country known for being clean and green and with more than half of its land mass covered in forests and bogs. Since she was young, she has been highly cognizant of the need to protect nature and engage in initiatives that promote environmental sustainability. 

Soon enough, her love for nature would eventually merge with a deep-seated interest in tech, the latter of which was ignited by the prevalence of startups in Estonia. Eventually, the Tallinn University of Technology graduate began carving a path toward the tech industry, all the while holding close to heart her environmental advocacies. 

Currently, Ave Tarend works as a senior software engineer at Bolt, a company whose goal is to make cities cleaner and whose operations are in line with her passion for technology and the environment. At Bolt, the purpose-driven figure brings not only impressive technical know-how but also her commitment to encouraging, educating, and attracting women and high school girls to choose IT and other technology-related fields.

“As a senior software engineer, to me, empowerment means to inspire, educate and encourage women and girls – to break stereotypes, to get more women excited about technology, and to show the world that more diverse groups of people are more successful,” shared Ave Tarend.  

This overarching mission and her dedication to spreading awareness about saving the planet serve as the fuel behind her participation in pageants, such as Mrs. Earth. Intimately privy to the power of pageants and the extent to which it is able to provide platforms for various causes, she went all-out in securing a spot in the spotlight so she could, in turn, shed light on women’s empowerment and environmental conservation. 

Ave Tarend, who has previously bagged the titles Mrs. Estonia 2021, Mrs. Tourism Estonia 2021, and Mrs. Model Estonia 2021, firmly believes that the tech industry should welcome more diversity.

“There should not still be stereotypes surrounding women and IT,” she said. “Jobs in the IT field require an engineer-like mindset, logical and analytical thinking, and a passion for learning – characteristics that are not exclusive to one gender. The IT field needs more women and more diverse groups of people as diverse teams have different viewpoints and energy, which then translates into greater innovation and better results.”