Girl Geek Academy is appealing for $2 million from state and federal governments to fund its programs aimed at supporting young women in tech, in the wake of a series of scandals in the male-dominated sector.
The Academy is calling for an urgent redirection of philanthropic and government funds to support women-led technology education programs and ultimately ensure a diversity of inclusive careers are made available within Australia’s digital workforce.
“One of the reasons we are keen on funding from government is that we’re reluctant to rely on philanthropy or corporate support outright means of running the program,” Lisy Kane, cofounder of Girl Geek Academy told Women’s Agenda.
“Circumstances beyond our control can easily sway these funding channels, and it can leave our program without a means of continuing its work. The biggest challenge for organisations like ours have been finding sustainable and long-term funding for multiple initiatives rather than just one-off program funding.”
The organisation is launching its latest round of fundraising in response to the WiseTech scandal which exposed its CEO, Richard White, of having paid millions of dollars to a former sexual partner to settle allegations of inappropriate behaviour.
WiseTech’s board released a statement, revealing that the billionaire businessman has gone on a “leave of absence” and will return in a consulting role as “Founder and Founding CEO” and an annual $1 million salary for the next decade.
The scandal has threatened to erode interest from women in the tech sector, according to the Academy’s leaders, and prompted a Change.Org petition, calling on the Australian government, philanthropic bodies, and private sector leaders to back programs and initiatives like Girl Geek Academy, fund programs that align with ethical standards and support safe, inclusive learning environments and invest in education that welcomes all genders.
“Recent events could not be sending a worse signal to young women with an ambition for a career in technology,” Kane said. “Any smart educated woman would see the current outcome of the Richard White saga as a major deterrent for a career in tech, where the industry folds in on itself to defend his reputation.”
In the past week, media reports have reported on the company’s operational and ethical failures, including White’s years-long relationship with an employee who was gifted a $7 million waterfront house in Melbourne. Details of the transaction had not been disclosed to the company’s board.
Further claims of bullying and intimidation within the company have also surfaced. Kane believes the scandal has much larger consequences for the country’s technology sector.
“WiseTech now has much larger issues to work through than supporting the next generation of technology workers,” she said. “We need to galvanise on this issue and diversify support, or risk seeing Australia’s national agenda for its tech industry go backwards.”
White isn’t the only man in the tech sector who is currently being investigated. In September, James Curran, the head of Grok Academy, an online education platform funded by both White and WiseTech, stepped down from his role pending an investigation into allegations of harassment against women and high school girls.
Grok Academy has received roughly $13 million in government funding through three separate initiatives, according to Girl Geek Academy.
“We’re not calling for the closure of any programs on the back of these findings. Our goal here is diversity more than anything else. We want more education programs for the technology sector, not less,” Kane said.
“But this saga underscores the importance of diversifying support across multiple programs, and purposefully funding that are aimed at supporting groups like women in the tech sector.”
“We’re essentially calling for policy makers and those who fund these programs to consider investing in them in a diverse way. Not only does this mean investing in women-led programs, but also not barreling all funds into just a few programs and expecting it to solve the problem – we have been calling for multiple annual diversity in STEM funding sources with targeted streams from schools, innovation in industry and startups.”
Kane doesn’t want to see the issue trend backwards through the removal of any programs, but instead, more groups addressing the issue.
“We only need $2 million to get the Girl Geek program back off the ground and educating young women both here in Australia and globally too,” she told Women’s Agenda. “We believe we’re more likely to hit our national targets regarding engaging women with STEM, and ensuring Australia the technology talent it needs to keep up with the rest of the world.
Kane hopes to collaborate with corporate partners and those within the tech sector who want to invest in solving the issue.
“We can’t bury our head in the sand and wait for this to blow over. We need to end this boys club mentality running technology education in Australia, and we can’t do it without broader support.”
Since its inception in 2014, Girl Geek Academy has taught 12,000 students and 1000 teachers how to code. It has partnered with organisations including MYOB, National Australia Bank, Nintendo, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, SAP, The US Peace Corp, Asia-Pacific Telecommunity and the Government of Vanuatu.
In June 2023, the organisation conducted a survey of over 300 girls and women engaged in STEM and found an overwhelming number of participants had experienced or witnessed incidents of gender discrimination, unconscious bias and sexual harassment within the technology industry.
According to the 2022 state of STEM gender equity monitor, women continue to makeup just over a third (36 per cent) of enrolments in university STEM courses, with just 23 per cent of senior management and 8 per cent of CEOs in STEM-qualified industries being women. On average, women continue to earn 18 per cent less than men across all STEM industries as found in the 2022 State of Australian Startup Funding report.