Women and ICT

The ACS has released results from its ACS Women Members Survey, which revealed women in the ICT sector still feel undervalued, have fewer careers opportunities compared to men, and feel the need to achieve better work life balance.

Although 70 per cent of women believed they received equivalent pay to their male counterparts, the remainder felt this was not the case, and many more respondents felt they did not get the same recognition or promotion opportunities as their male colleagues.  

The gender inequality among developers and supporters of free software is stunning. Less than 2% of us are women, according to studies conducted for the European Commission. Why? The evidence says we’re driving them away. There are even some pretty good published guidelines on how not to drive them away. What’s missing is a practical implementation strategy: here Terry Hancock presents ten relatively simple changes in how you run your project, to make it more attractive to would-be contributors—especially women.

The role of women in the Middle East is changing, as is evidenced by enrollment in the Cisco Networking Academy program. Since January 2008, about 36% of the 1,200 newly enrolled students in Jordan are women. This brings the total number of participating students in Jordan to 6000 in the 34 Cisco Networking Academies across the Kingdom.

"We are excited to see such a significant increase of females in Jordan taking an  interest in ICT as a career that provides them with the expertise to contribute as productive members of their communities," said Nevine El Kadi, Middle East & Africa Networking Academy Program manager in Cisco. "By investing in local skills, the country is taking another step toward an even stronger economy that enhances its global competitiveness."

The purpose of this initiative is to assist with the development of a database, containing ICT SMMEs owned by black or women as well as to recommend Black and Women ICT SMME support programs, which will address skills and enterprise development within SMMEs.  It may be expected that such ICT SMME support programs will ultimately increase employment and competitiveness in South Africa through the provision of more employable ICT workers.

The ICT industry is losing the talent of skilled women who can bring to it a richness and diversity of thought and perspective and can help alleviate the shortage of skills, which is exacerbated by their lack of participation.  Without women as an integral part of the workforce, the ICT industry is bereft of many potential contributors to the formulation of government and research policy and the development of technology that benefits communities as a whole; it is also deprived of a broader set of perspectives in the design of critical information systems.