Women in ICT Expert group

With the demand for ICT personnel with the right skills likely to increase in the future, we need to promote the participation and advancement of women in digital careers and encourage and stimulate the interest of women to engage in ICT-related studies. The CEPIS Women in ICT Task Force was established to pool the expertise from its Member Societies on the topic of women in ICT, share best practice and develop pan-European activities to increase women’s participation in the ICT profession. The group aims to grow the numbers of women working in IT professions in Greater Europe.
Activities
CEPIS DiversIT Charter
The Women in ICT group has developed the CEPIS DiversIT Charter, a roadmap and structured programme of activities that organisations can take to establish a supporting environment for Women in IT professions. The actions are in three main stages (Bronze, Silver and Gold) with themes of activity at each stage. Signatories to the charter commit to engage in with the charter and undertake the activities, which will progressively allow their organisations to build support for women working in technology roles.

Best practices and initiatives
One of the activities of the Women in ICT expert group is to gather relevant initiatives and best practice examples from other stakeholders to inform and inspire everyone to further the cause of increasing gender diversity in ICT professions.
Recommendations of Policies Supporting Retention of Women in IT
Whilst quite a lot is being done for attraction of women to the technical professions, less is done in the equally important field of retention. We have collected some suggestions which could be useful for policy-makers and companies alike.