By Hetal Shah, AVP Marketing, PayMate (@hetalsha)
International Women’s Day has assumed a new global dimension for women in developed and developing countries alike. And in these regions, science and engineering are the foundation stones that create room for innovation to exist when clubbed with the latest tech available. Unfortunately, some form of gender bias or inequality has always existed in these areas for women to flourish from an early age. For example, in some societies stereotypical attitudes towards women’s education are deeply rooted that derail girls’ choices of what to study in school, resulting in their overall choice of careers and employment opportunities as adults.
Statistically speaking; globally, young women outnumber young men in tertiary education. Yet women are minority students in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education, at only 35%, and in information and communication technology studies, at a mere 3%. In the USA, Black and Hispanic women in STEM jobs earn about $20,000 a year less than the average for STEM jobs and about $33,000 less than their white male counterparts. Whereas in Asia and the Pacific region, one study revealed that 44% of women in STEM occupations who had caring responsibilities did not have flexible work arrangements during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bringing women and other marginalized groups into these fields can result in more creative solutions and greater potential for innovations and this could result in closing the gender gap in classrooms and promote a sense of equality among young adults from an early age.
But the question is — how can this be implemented?
We propose an initiative that can be conducted at an individual or company level which involves visiting a Girl’s orphanage and donating gadgets or softwares that digitizes or automates any task. A stronger impact would be created when one invests their time in educating the young women on how to use those donated gadgets or new technological solutions that could be useful to them in their day-to-day lives. This will open their minds to a possibility of a future in which they could be innovators.
When such opportunities are given to even the underprivileged, this could create a positive impact on the greater gender diversity in enterprises of all sizes, driving more revenues. As stated in a study conducted by Boston Consulting Group and Technical University of Munich, companies with the greatest gender diversity (those in which 8 out of every 20 managers were female) generated about 34% of their revenues from innovative products and services in the most recent three-year period.
Therefore, this women’s day, let’s pledge to unite our efforts and pave the way towards a world where all women at least get a chance to explore opportunities in technology, thereby being active contributors in the digital realm.
