According to the studies conducted in the EU: only 17% of ICT specialists are women, only 34% of STEM graduates are women, women in the ICT sector earn 19% less than men, 46% of women have reported that they have discrimination experienced in the European tech sector, just 22% of participants in tech-related Meetup events throughout the EU were women. The speakers of the StrategEast Online Panel tried to find out if this trend is repeating in the IT industry of Eurasia and how to change it.
“First we need to explain why gender diversity is really important for the IT industry. Recent research shows that gender-diverse companies are 3-4 times more innovative compared to others. In addition, in such companies, the customer focus is twice as high and as a result – their profitability is 35 percent higher ”, – explained Mariam Kobalia, Gender and Youth Expert for the USAID/Georgia, Economic Security Program.
“The main stereotype in Belarusian society is that women cannot program,” says Anastasia Zaitseva, Co-founder and CCO at WITA.by community and mentorship program for women in IT. “We at WITA.by are working to break this stereotype. In particular, we try to convince women that they can choose any job, and not limit themselves to what is considered “traditionally female occupations” in society.”
Mayya Vu, Community Lead at Women Techmakers Lviv does not see any similar problems in Ukraine. “We in Ukraine do not have any strong gender stereotypes about whether a woman can work in IT or not. Moreover, Western companies, such as Google, have already brought a high culture of gender equality, and most Ukrainian companies also adhere to the standards of gender neutrality. Rather, the problem is with the women themselves. It is difficult for them to decide to take such a job, to study for an IT engineer, to apply for a job in IT – we see that men do it much easier than women.”
The panel moderator Amy Peck, Founder and CEO at Endeavor VR, Advisor and Mentor at US Market Access Center asked the participants which company could be considered gender-diverse. According to Mariam Kobalia, a company where one-third of the employees represent “the non-dominant gender” can be considered as such. It means the ratio of male employees to female employees or female employees to male ones should be 2/3. Anastasia Zaitseva added that there is a more specific condition in the IT industry: at least one-third of software engineers in a company should be women. “It is important to overcome the stereotype that women can only occupy “female” positions – in marketing, service, administration, but not in engineering. Only then will we get the real gender balance,” – she says.
The panel discussion “Women in Tech” was broadcasted live to StrategEast Facebook page, the record is available on our Youtube channel. This event is a part of the StrategEastLive project featuring live discussions with global thought leaders.
