On 26 November 2021 we held our annual DiversIT event. This year’s theme was “Gender equality in the IT workplace: breaking down the barriers“. This event was a part of CEPIS work on the DiversIT Charter, the programme for companies and organisations to recognise and further their efforts in increasing gender equality in their tech teams.
Currently only 17% of IT professionals in Europe are women. At the same time, 55% of companies experience difficulties in recruiting IT professionals. There are many initiatives and projects for reducing the gender gap in digital professions. However, women still face barriers in IT workplaces that men do not. Issues such as gender pay gap, stereotyping and unconscious bias are very much present in the European IT sector. Without solving them, the share of women in the tech workforce will remain low.
The good news is that these issues can be solved. Our excellent line-up of competent and knowledgeable speakers focused on concrete and practical aspects of reducing the gender gap in IT professions, such as the benefits of diverse teams for businesses, improving company culture, (the importance of) unconscious bias training, and best practices in recruitment to increase the rate of female applicants for tech roles.
This event also featured a few best practices for your inspiration and information on the DiversIT Charter.
You can find the recording of the event on the CEPIS YouTube channel.
Programme
Welcome address and presentation about CEPIS
10:00 – 10:10
- Byron Nicolaides, President, CEPIS
Keynote: “A diverse and inclusive workplace – beneficial for everyone”
10:10 – 10:30
- Sharon Moore MBE, CTO for Public Sector, IBM
DiversIT Charter – summary and updates
10:30 – 10:45
- Introducing the DiversIT Charter: Petra Kotuliakova, Founder and CEO, “Aj ty v IT”
- Sharing experience – Attaining the Bronze level of the DiversIT Charter: Nurcan Sunay, Chair of Women in Tech group, Turkish Informatics Society
Award of the Gold level to the Icelandic Computer Society
10:45 – 11:00
Panel discussion: Practical steps for achieving gender equality in the IT workplace
11:00 – 12:00
- Moderator: Gillian Arnold, Member of the Board, Chair of the CEPIS Women in ICT expert group
- Panellists:
- Ragnar Martens, Co-founder and Director of Product, SkillLab
- Kathryn Gunnarsson, Founder, Geko Consulting
- Andrea Palmer, Principal Consultant, Infosys Consulting, Chair of BCS Women
- Dr Reinhard Riedl, Head of BFH Center Digital Society, Bern University of Applied Sciences
- Sibel Soyak Esder, Programme Lead of Million Women Mentors Turkey, TurkishWIN
Best practice on upskilling: Women4 IT project
12:00 – 12:20
- Mary Cleary, Secretary General, the Irish Computer Society
Call to action and closing remarks
12:20 – 12:30
