Diverse Tech Breakfast at the office

Since 2016 the Oda Network in Norway arranges "Norway's 50 leading tech women" where prominent woman in tech is nominated and appreciated for their work in tech.

ODA is the Nordic leading network for diversity in tech with the vision "We empower women in technology to Lead the Change."

Simployer techies and colleagues from other departments joined together to watch the awards with breakfast and good talks about how to work with diversity in tech.

Only 29% of employees and 33% of managers in IT companies in Norway are women.

In tech there are few female compared to men with just over a quarter of these roles being occupied by women.

These figures simply boils down to not enough women choosing technology-related careers.

What can Simployer do to attract more female techies?

In Simployer we have about 25 % female workers in Product and Tech department. We believe that we need more diversity to create new and better solutions and share ideas.

I asked Karoline (Team Manager Development) how we can inspire more females to choose tech.

I think that is a difficult question to answer, but my opinion is that we should work with how we can inspire more people in general to choose technical careers. If more people know of the options and possibilities in technological jobs, we will attract more diversity in general. I believe in incorporating coding as a part of the school education program and of visible good role models, Karoline says.

Karoline tells me it was a coincidence that she ended up in tech

When I finished high school I was 19, and needed something to do for a year before I was old enough to apply for the police academy. My mother suggested a bachelor's degree in digital media production at a nearby university. During the first year I was introduced to some simple web programming using PHP and it really connected with my love of mathematics and logic. I switched from digital media production to computer science and now I have been working as a developer for almost 11 years. I did not know that this was a possible career path, and that I could work with applying logical thinking through programming as a job, until I accidentally was introduced to it.

This year Simployer did not receive any recognition, but next year we will contribute with more nominees.

With our without a prize, we do have some great role models in Simployer and we aim for more.

Looking for a tech job in Simployer? Have a look here.

Source : Oda Nettverket Women in tech