Address the gender gap in technology from communication departments
Or how to introduce the culture of feminism in your company through Technovation, one of the most important children’s technological start-ups contest in the world.
You can also read this article in Spanish at AEComunicacionCientifica.org
Last February I started a new professional challenge: to become the Chief Communications Officer of Z1., a design and investment studio in digital products that works mostly with entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley, New York and Austin. In the team, we are 20 people, 17 boys, and three girls: The head of finances, a web developer, and myself. That means that only one out of 18 “technological positions” is occupied by a woman.
Even before joining the staff (I had been working with them for a long time) I have known that these figures do not correspond to a specific problem of machismo in this company or a lousy focus in its human resources policy, but rather to a global social issue. The projects we develop are exciting, and the working conditions offered are excellent, but surprisingly when we launched a technology-based offer 90% of the CVs we received are from a male applicant.
Coincidence? Definitely not.
The latest report of startups in the US made by First Round, included for the first time issues related to gender, diversity and sexual harassment at work. Thus, to the typical questions strictly related to the market and product, there were others that confirmed what is already an open secret in the American entrepreneurial ecosystem: 59.5% of the startups surveyed consist exclusively of men, compared to a dismal 1.7% built only by women. With 22.4% in which the majority of the team is of the masculine gender and a scant 13% that confirms the parity.
This problem remains as an open secret, and hot topic after some scandals came to light, such as those collected in the series published by CNN in Money Power & Sexual Harassment in 2017. It needs to be addressed from all possible fronts, and some companies have already begun to take action. On my last visit to San Francisco last September, a Dropbox developer told me how they were including eliminatory questions related to gender issues in the job interviews to join his company. Also alternatively, he explained how some startups had begun applying other policies of positive discrimination in its personnel selection processes.
The communication department is a driver of change.
In the face of such a scenario, I set out to do our best at Z1 to contribute to try to change the situation. I, as a communicator, believe that from the communication departments we are in a privileged position to raise awareness and inform of these issues to the rest of the team members and motivate (or convince) the “top managers” of the importance of taking the matter into their own hands. You can always do something, no matter how small it may feel if you do your best is enough. And if just like me, you have detected sensitivity and concern about this problem in the company, you have done half the work.
Many times the CEOs, CTOs and COOs of startups are saturated with a thousand critical issues that they urgently need to solve to carry out their projects. And if they do not deal with these equality issues, it is not because a matter of lack of interest or social responsibility, but because they don’t have someone who puts them in front of the programs in which they can participate as a company or guides them on how to contribute to the cause actively.
The communication departments are in a privileged position to raise awareness and motivate the “top managers” of the importance of taking the technology gender gap problem into their own hands.
Technovation: #GirlsForaChange!
The last feminist action in which we have been part in Z1 has been participating as a jury in Technovation: an international contest that empowers girls and teenagers around the world, motivating them to start a social innovation startup. The girls must develop a mobile application that responds to a social problem that affects their community. The goal is as clear as it is ambitious: to reduce the gender gap in technology from childhood by strengthening girls in technology and business. Moreover, the good thing is that anyone with communication, marketing, design, web development, research or educative skills in their profile can be part of it.
Thus, this is a program in which any technology company could participate either by evaluating the applications, as we did, mentoring one or several teams, or if it is more ambitious, being ambassadors of the event since the statistics they handle are stratospheric, that is why they need a massive volunteers deployment.
In 2018 about 19,000 girls from more than 150 countries participated, with more than 2,000 apps shown. Each project must be evaluated by at least three different judges to ensure the quality and impartiality of the scores. These scores serve to take the finalist teams to a very special gala in Silicon Valley. There the girls present their startup to an audience, with the possibility of winning a large cash prize to start up their business idea.
Technovation reward is not developing an application itself, but the technological empowerment and the awakening for several generations of girls thank to this program.
Our experience
Participating in a program like Technovation has been an exciting and challenging initiative for our team. Richard Rueda, a Colombian bachelor who is our new communication intern in the studio, hadn’t heard about the event before. He told me that the experience has been highly rewarding: “The truth is that as a jury we have a great responsibility since our votes and opinions are crucial for the group we are evaluating. You should not take away the desire to continue due to technical failures. I learned how to find the balance between correction and motivation. “ Another colleague, Mustafa Kadem, a young developer from Iraq who is doing the internship with us, explained to me that he had found super inspiring to see projects of this kind at first hand. “It has helped me visualize how children think in digital format,” he said.
Thanks to Technovation we were able to meet Somkele, Aderomola, and Ayomide, three 14-year-old friends who live in a small town in southern Nigeria. Alternatively, Sasha, ten years old and resident in Buffalo, in the state of New York. All of them have figure out a problem in their community that they have decided to face to try to improve some aspects of people’s lives that surround them, thanks to technology.
That is how Sasha, with the help of her mentor, set up a social network that helps allergic people when they travel abroad not to be afraid to face supermarkets or restaurants. She has done it because she suffers from these problems when she visits her in-laws in France. Sasha researched the subject and detected that a very high percentage of boys and girls with some allergy in her school suffer the same anxiety when traveling, both them and their parents. She designed an application, recorded a pitch explaining everything, and we had the chance to offer her advice and recommendations to improve it.
The same in the case of Somkele and her friends. We have seen first-hand the plight of Nigerian women merchants and how a simple accounting application could save them many problems they face in their day-to-day lives. We studied their proposal, and we gave them feedback that hopefully encourages them to continue working implementing the App.
Obviously, these apps are not complex products that are going to be marketed tomorrow. The reward is not the application itself, but the technological empowerment and the awakening for several generations of girls thank to this program. Values that companies should be promoting more profoundly and that now is more accessible thanks to initiatives like this.
