Women In Tech: Celebrating International Women’s Day 2019 #BalanceForBetter
International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women as a global community. This year’s theme, #BalanceForBetter, strives to increase gender balance in all industries for a better working world. How can we achieve this balance? Bring awareness, motivate others and take action. Everyone can do their part.
By empowering women through technical education it can help bridge the gender gap and open up opportunities for more women in tech. Some organizations that work to nurture women’s tech talent are Girls Who Code (USA), Black Girls Code (USA & South Africa) and Kizcode (UK).
Girls Who Code, founded by Reshma Saujani, has made the gender gap and tech education more visible by recruiting high profile ambassadors — most notably Supermodel Karlie Kloss to raise awareness. Girls Who Code has reached almost 90,000 girls and aims to contribute to gender parity by 2027.
Kimberly Bryant set out to create Black Girls Code to prove that girls of every colour can code. Through workshops and after school programs, Black Girls Code provides underprivileged girls in underrepresented communities the opportunity to learn and master their technical skills. Their goal is to train 1 million girls by 2040.
Müjde Esin created Kizcode to open doors for Turkish and Kurdish speaking women in the UK who faced domestic violence and forced marriages in their patriarchal societies. It is difficult for these women to integrate into UK society because they face language difficulties and unemployment. Kizcode aims to equip these women with skills to improve their quality of life through education and nurturing their skills. By empowering these women with code, tech and computer skills, it provides them with an opportunity for a career, to reach their goals or simply sell their handmade products and recipes online as a means of income.
You don’t have to set up a coding organization to make a difference. Two women that are fighting for diversity and balance in the workplace for women are Laura Gómez and Laura Weidman Powers. Through the people analytics tool, Atipica, Laura Gómez helps companies use data to strategize hiring and build more diverse workforces. Laura Weidman Powers, who served as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Chief Technology Officer in the Obama White House, is an advocate for young Black and Latino Engineers, and works to ensure that they’re proportionally represented in the field.
When empowered with knowledge and mentored, girls and women can make the world a better place.
A group of girls from San Fernando High School in Los Angeles teamed up with DIY Girls, an organization supporting girls in STEM, to create lightweight and portable solar powered tents for the homeless. Homelessness was close to their hearts as Daniela Orozco, one member of the group who then was a senior of San Fernando, came from a low income family. Within only four years, the girls saw the increase of homelessness in their community and wanted to create a solution. Their solar powered tents has the potential to help many different people worldwide, including refugees or victims of natural disasters.
Thato Kgatlhanye from South Africa launched her company, Rethaka Trading, when she was only 18 years old. Disadvantaged children face many challenges such as lack of school supplies like school bags and being exposing to the risk of getting hit by cars while walking on unsafe roads on the way to school. Rethaka repurposes schoolbags filled with retro-reflective materials to increase visibility for the children’s walk to and from school. These bags are fitted with a solar panel that charges as the child is walking to school and when they get back home, they can use it as a light to study. “We are offering dignity, safety and access to light.” — Kgatlhanye
Although young, these women have shown great contribution to our society, much like blockchain. Blockchain technology is still maturing, but we’ve seen the impact it has already made on the world. If it wasn’t for the development of blockchain, STK Token and other cryptocurrencies, exchanges and wallets wouldn’t exist. It’s also opened up a new type of job for women in tech, Blockchain Developers.
STK’s former Blockchain Developer, Natalie Chin, who is still in school at McMaster University for Computer Science, is already making an impact in the space. Chin has been very actively involved in the blockchain community; volunteering, organizing, mentoring, and speaking at hackathons — including DeltaHacks and STACKATHON to name a few. Her talent has taken her to ETH San Francisco, where the STK team & friends won the top 3 prizes. Chin continues to work in tech in Toronto, and as a Blockchain Professor at George Brown College, where she shares her knowledge and experience to guide the next generation of Blockchain Developers.
In all these examples, we can see that when women are empowered, supported and represented in tech, they accomplish incredible things. This is one of the reasons to strive for #BalanceForBetter.
Is there a woman in tech that inspires you? Do you know someone we should profile? Leave your comments below!
