Women in Tech: Started from the top, now we’re here
The beginnings of technological progress were shaped far more by women than many think. Currently, the digital industry is less diverse than society as a whole. Is there a way to change this? diconium digital specialists Lunia Hara and Anja Hendel on diversity, mentoring – and change.
Less than 30 percent of employees in the German IT industry are female, and only 15 percent of applicants for IT specialist positions are women. An inequality that an industry in which 124,000 IT specialist positions are unfilled in Germany alone at the end of 2019 can hardly afford.
Lunia Hara and Anja Hendel have known the digital industry for many years. Anja studied business informatics before becoming a technology consultant. Before she joined diconium as Managing Director, she headed the Porsche Digital Lab. Lunia started her career at Sony Music and is now Director Project Management at diconium through various positions. As female executives in the digital industry they are not unique – but still a minority.
Women shaped the early days of technology more than many remember
The tech sector was initially dominated by women. The first person who ever wrote code about 200 years ago was a female: Lady Ada Lovelace. Even before the term “software” was born, it was women who wrote code. In the 1940s, it was women who cracked the codes of the enemies of war in Great Britain with the help of the first computer-like machines. Until the 1990s, the proportion of women in the IT industry rose steadily before falling: in 2013, it was only 26 percent in the United States, as research by the New York Times shows. The glass ceiling was built over time – and it remains in 2020.
The OECD report “Bridging the Digital Gender Divide” lists numerous differences between the sexes: Worldwide, about 327 million fewer women than men have a smartphone. Female start-ups generate 23 percent less funding and the probability of achieving a positive exit is 30 percent lower than for male start-ups. At the age of 15, only about 0.5 percent of girls dream of an IT career, compared to five percent of boys.
Networks and mentors help to inspire young women in tech and to climb the top
How do you change this imbalance? Lunia says: “Companies need to better explain how many different professions there are in the tech world. Many young women don’t even know what is possible – and think of the lonely nerd in front of the computer”. Networks and mentoring relationships are an important tool for keeping an overview of the digital career jungle.
“If you want to rise as a woman, you need a circle of other women who have perhaps already gone down this path themselves,” says Anja. Although networks are important for both women and men, she says that the exchange of information about career hurdles explicitly helps women — to learn more about individual challenges and the industry in general. Where do positions become vacant? What strategies are used for salary negotiations? How do you get promoted? Early in her career, Anja only had male mentors, as she recalls. That changed when she realized: Women face challenges through their careers that men simply do not experience. “That is why one reason why we need to share our stories and learn from one another”, says Anja. “Solidarity is important to break through the glass ceiling together and support others on their way up.”
Diversity covers more than gender — and has its own business value
“Especially women sometimes tend to doubt themselves,” says Lunia. Mentors can help against that – even if they do not hold a significantly higher position. “Even tandem mentoring at the same level can be very good,” says Lunia. Instead of waiting for the perfect mentor, you should simply approach people you think you can learn something from. Her very personal experience was that her mentor helped her to see the working world from a new perspective. “We looked through job ads and asked ourselves: What would a man say? How would he proceed?” she says, “Banal, but very effective for me.”
However, it’s not just about women in the tech world. “Unfortunately, diversity is limited only to gender and nationality, but there is much more at stake,” says Lunia. “It’s also a matter of ethnic-cultural affiliation, age or religion.” Diversity is not an end in itself, but leads to better results, says Anja:
“A team that brings together many different perspectives will always find the better solution for complex problems such as those dealt with in IT than a team of people who are similar.”
Mentorship and collaboration are only one part of the puzzle to make tech more diverse. The OECD report demands structural change to lower the entry barrier for women and minorities. This includes access and affordability of digital products, but also educational campaigns that showcase the success of women in STEM-related fields.
It might still be a long way until we archive equality but establishing female role models and actively supporting each other can be the first step towards a more diverse tech world.
