‘Go where you’re celebrated, not where you’re tolerated’: The place for women in tech - Women's Agenda

‘Go where you’re celebrated, not where you’re tolerated’: The place for women in tech

Women make up just 28% of the ICT workforce compared with 43% across other professional services industries, and face a 20% gender pay gap.

That’s a problem especially when you consider the massive shortage of skills the sector faces, as well as estimates that Australia could need more than 100,000 additional ICT specialist by the year 2020.

It’s also a problem given high profile reports of sexual harassment in large organisations, like the latest publicity nightmare facing Uber.

So it’s good to see the ACS continuing its efforts to address diversity within the sector, with ACS Victoria Branch Executive Chair Maria Markman noting that it is a key priority of her tenure. She is adament that diversity is essential for meeting the projected demand for tech-related skills in the future.

The question is: how do you do it?

This morning ACS Victoria hosted a panel discussion at Federation Square asking how far the sector has come on diversity, featuring Markman, Dr Amanda Caples from the Victorian Government, Ajay Bhatia from carsales.com, Matthew Lee from Qantas, Jacqueline Savage the founder of Medcorp Technologies, and Rohini Kappadath, from KPMG.

One of the key and emerging trends to occur from the panel was the idea diversity will drive better innovation and vice versa – it’s up to organisations to figure it out in order to remain competitive.

As Kappadath said: “Focus on innovation and competitiveness and diversity will follow.” She also urged women in the room to “go where you’re celebrated, not where you’re tolerated” and warned that Australia risks losing out in the race for talent if we can’t get better at diversity.

The tech sector can only thrive with innovation, and innovation can only thrive through the contributions and creativity of a diverse range of people.

As was noted by the panel today, we all have the opportunity to do even just one action for diversity in our daily work and lives.

That can start with pursuing opportunities where diversity is celebrated – where it’s a simply part of the competitive, creative process, and where it’s used to facilitate better ideas and innovation.

 

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