Women in tech: Why it’s time for companies to try a new gender-equality playbook

In any industry, biases that are based on gender can make people think that a certain gender isn’t as qualified or good at a job. Stereotypical thoughts lead people to believe a specific gender lacks the skills or qualities that the job requires. Intelligence, compassion, communication, and leadership skills are all qualities that can be downplayed, thanks to gender bias.

While the tech field in particular has been called out for its gender bias, it has also impacted the number of women choosing entrepreneurship. Only four of India’s 96 unicorns are led by women. Even with Falguni Nayar’s startup Nykaa showcasing a stellar IPO opening, women-led organisations still have a long way to go. According to YourStory Research, the number of new startups founded by women has dropped by 66.67 percent from 2018.

Speaking about breaking the bias and giving women leaders in tech more opportunities to be heard, four exceptional leaders from the tech ecosystem - Ila Agarwal, AVP, Engineering, Urban Company; Deepa Parikh, Head of Solutions Engineering, Akamai Technologies; Anand Narayanan, Chief Product Officer, Simplilearn; and Rajini Sree Rajan, Head of Technology, 21K School, shared their first-hand perspectives on how to close the diversity gap in tech and their own tech playbooks for their organisations. Here are the key takeaways from the conversation.

Busting myths about women in tech

“Women need to have more faith in themselves,” said Deepa, talking about the most significant barriers to female leadership. She drew from the famous Hewlett Packard internal report, which revealed that men apply for a job when they meet only 60 percent of the qualifications, but women apply only if they meet 100 percent of them. It’s a stat that’s often invoked as evidence that women need more confidence.

Talking about best practices for an inclusive leadership program, she advised finding ways to bring out the confidence levels in women employees to speak up and also giving them opportunities to demonstrate and expand their skill sets. She also encouraged the creation of informal networks, skewed towards women empowerment.

Building on what Deepa said, Simplilearn’s Anand replied, “In my experience of managing women and men leaders, I feel that women tend to hold themselves back. They tend to be much deeper thinkers, as a result of which they usually hold themselves back quite a bit,” he said, advising to shed that kind of thought process.

Rajini meanwhile attributed barriers to the social construct and the responsibilities that she believed “literally overwhelm all women”, advising women to figure out a strong support system to concentrate on their career on an equal footing as men.

Tech that helps close the gender gap

Accessibility and time are two huge factors that tech is solving for women and helping close the gender gap in skilling. “By simply being online, we are democratising the access to big skilling programmes, and that changes the game quite a bit for women,” said Anand.

Deepa also spoke about how it all came down to delivering and optimising value and security with technology. “Whether it is employees who are trying to log in and learn a new skill, or it is building a new feature into your app, or it is getting more children safely working on your platform, it’s important to underscore everything with an element of security to protect your hard work,” she said.

“It’s important to constantly ask questions such as: How do you constantly drive the value for whatever the incremental features you're bringing in? Are you sure that matters to them? Is this what they want to use? Are the products in line with what customers want?,” she added.

Advice to women tech aspirants

“As a student, I felt weird because all of my other female acquaintances would not talk about coding or pursuing a career in tech. And when I wanted to talk about tech, I found nobody to talk to,” said Ila, drawing from her own experience as a tech student, and the lack of mentors and role models in the field.

“Find a tech community, any community, join it, and surround yourself with people with whom you can talk about tech passionately. And that will really, really help you see this dream of pursuing a career in tech,” she advises.

“In a male-dominated society, a woman’s unique perspective has its own business value,” said Anand, talking about the incredible opportunity for women in tech.

“Sometimes your own mind will tell you that you shouldn't do this, but unless you try and you see what you can accomplish, don't tell yourself that you can't do it,” he added.

Deepa who also believed that women were often more averse to trying something new and chartering new career paths, especially in tech, said, “I'm very passionate about telling anybody who's young and getting into the workforce that, can you just give yourself a chance to whatever your definition of success is.”.

“I feel too many young women professionals step out of this arena before knowing what success may mean to them, and that’s a shame,” she added.