Can a small question lead to a big journey? Undisputedly yes it can. Back in 2015, the question of why there is no single female postdoc or professor at the research institute where Alex used to work at the time could be considered as the beginning of the whole women++ journey.
‘’I never planned to open a non-profit organization. In 2015 I asked myself the question of why my institute did not have a single female postdoc or professor among its staff. I created a focus group on meetup.com called “women in STEM” and hosted events at my department at University of Zurich. A collaboration on larger events “Zurich women in Tech industry and academia” led to co-founding of the first Swiss Chapter of Geek Girls Carrots in Zurich and eventually women++. It was a wonderful time of collaboration, volunteering for something people believed in. The shape of women++ today, is thanks to everyone’s dedication to the mission and values that women++ represent, as well as the impact on individual’s own professional paths. ’’
So, through her personal academic experience (she studied computational science and theoretical physics at the University of Zurich. Alex holds a Ph.D. at the intersection of computational science, theoretical physics and astronomy, and today she is a scientific researcher at the University of Bern), she early came to the realization that women remain underrepresented in science:
‘’Although there are more women studying STEM fields than ever, afterwards they start dropping out of the academic career ladder, a phenomenon known as the “leaky pipeline”. The higher the position, the fewer women are represented, whether they work in academic fields, the government or industry.”
Alex was always very eager to get a line on how the past has shaped the status quo, focusing on the history of female empowerment and socio-economic factors, and why STEM fields are not gender-diverse.
‘’I think it’s really important to understand where these legacy issues originated from. It is widely recognized that there are organizational, individual, and cultural obstacles to female leadership. The hardest ones to tackle are the cultural obstacles which the other two are resting upon as it’s extremely hard to change the minds of societies.’’
“The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.” A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf (1929).
Being familiar with the concept of “gender socialization”, and how this has influenced generations’ attitudes and beliefs, she has deeply probed how it manifests in everyday women’s life, from gender inequalities in education to employment, income, and empowerment.
‘’We are living in a society of certain norms and standards and we are educated to think in a gendered way because of the process that’s in psychology called gender socialization. That means that through major agents such as family, education, peer groups and mass media certain gendered norms and standards are being repeated over time until they feel natural. Stepping away from the norm leads to gender discrimination.”
Building up a strong network of women in the tech industry
The belief that the empowerment of women STEM professionals is fostered in a matrix of awareness, mutual trust, and community support is one of the foundational principles for women++.
‘’We wanted to be primarily a tech-related educational organization, providing prosperity for women empowerment. The vision was to create strong supporting networks, to grow the awareness of the importance of female leadership, and of the existence of opportunities in the tech sector. Ultimately we wanted to increase the number of women working in the tech sector by focusing on adults willing to either advance their existing careers or transition to this sector from other fields. In order to increase the number of women working in STEM, we don’t need to solely focus on promoting STEM careers amongst kids in schools. Many adult women never got a chance to experience the joy of creating something with new technologies, and today they are curious and very motivated to try. As professionals, they are very likely to “convert” and become engaged in this highly lucrative and highly influential world of technology. ’’
This is also what makes women++ stand out from the other organizations working to increase diversity in tech.
‘’Many initiatives have existed, trying to convince school girls to join STEM forces, or from the perspective of companies, to support their own staff and/or “poach” existing female tech talent. But hardly anybody was really adding to the pool of the untapped talent: the promising group of women who are determined, motivated and curious about joining the tech train by transitioning in adult life. This target group has been overlooked. This is why we created the workshops for beginners and the women++ scholarship for further education in data science and web development, together with our academic partner SIT Academy. Today there are more organizations in this sector and it makes me happy to see that. The new leadership team at women++ has been realizing their vision of connecting female empowerment and upskilling with purposeful work for other NGOs with their newest initiative deploy(impact). This concept is absolutely unique, as it also goes in the direction of “purposeful technology”, because, objectively speaking, not every technology makes sense or is really doing good’’.
Read more about the 7 benefits to joining deploy(impact) 2022.
Research-based initiatives that help women transition into tech
‘’The probability of success is difficult to estimate: but if we never search, the chance of success is zero’’.
“This quote is about understanding a little bit of the background and what are the issues that women++ could tackle. Since the onset of the organization, many programming and career-related workshops have been conducted, and the most unique product of the first 2 years of women++ has been the creation of the novel hackathon format which has served as inspiration for other hackathon-like initiatives inspired by its success: Hack’n’Lead.
“It wasn’t just about making women feel like hackathons are for them. It was also about reinventing the hackathon format, much like workplaces should be reinvented to address female needs, because hackathons in their shape and form, like many other products or services, were not really “tested” on women or designed for them. We created a family-like atmosphere, where children were learning algorithmic thinking while their moms (and dads) were coding in the next room. The event format which touches generations is the most powerful vehicle for change for both moms and the young minds, which can now challenge the male face of tech which they’ve been taught about via gender socialization.’’
The Hack’n’Lead story started when Alex saw studies which explained that women on average want hackathons that are not focused on competition but the learning experience that comes with it. And she did research on how to redesign the event format so that it suits the reality of an average European woman. It boiled down to no overnight coding, organizing preparatory workshops to close the so-called confidence gap, enabling ample mentorship on-site, and providing childcare with coding on-site, mindful of the stats showing that in the EU, 80% of parents who decrease their working time in order to take care of children, are women (and that excludes the maternity leave). And it really worked, as female participation increased from the typical 20 to 80%. But on the back of her mind predominantly was that there has to be a fundamental shift in the design of workplaces to being inclusive and answering to the demands of women. Hackathons undoubtedly have seen the path to being followed.
‘’The key is to redesign workplaces by asking underrepresented groups, like women, how and where they want to work, excel and feel included and valued. With that you can make a difference.’’
The success story of women++ is about community projects, jobs and career development, bonds, perceptions and values.
‘’It is seen in individual lives, the projects done by the community, the new jobs and career changes, the women who took the scholarship and continued education, the bonds between females in tech, and the change in the perception of the tech scene which, although still largely not inclusive, is going to be a less powerful deterrent. I think women++ helps women recognize their value and gives them more confidence to go out and change those typical 80–20% male-to-female ratios elsewhere.’’
Nowadays for Alex, being involved with women++ mainly means new plans, interaction, brainstorming, novel ideas, values, respect, and a sustainable future.
‘’As an advisor, I enjoy hearing what the new team has planned for the organization’s future, and that I still can contribute to their brainstorming and they value my input. This is incredibly rewarding. It has been my dream to leave it in a sustainable state in which the community will carry it on.’’
For those, oldies and new members, who built the current women++ from the ground up by putting a lot of hours into getting and going somewhere unknown, Alex has a deep respect and appreciation.
‘’women++ always relied on amazing volunteers, among those the most dedicated became board members, advisors, or executives, that steer this ship in a new direction.
Thank you for driving women++ forward.’’
About the author
Aikaterini Klimogianni, women++’s content writer, is a professional with long industry, education, and non-profit organizations experience.
Her studies in sciences, project management, and sustainability, as well as her experience living in different countries, have allowed Aikaterini to develop a great consciousness and perception of how to effectively communicate with people from different backgrounds. Her life and career have been driven by a strong passion to search for accurate and effective management of knowledge with ethos.
Being involved with women++’s mission of female inclusion in the tech ecosystem and its path for women empowerment gives her a feeling of great happiness and pleasure.
Her favorite quote:
“Don’t tolerate me as different. Accept me as part of the spectrum of normalcy.” Ann Northrop
