Technology has traditionally been a male-dominated industry. But in recent years, the number of women working in tech has grown significantly. Along with this trend, conferences focused on supporting and empowering women in the field have proliferated globally.
This article explores the emergence of women in technology event series, the importance of community and networking opportunities they create, key events and organizations, and their role in driving diversity and inclusion.
## The Growing Need for Women in Tech Events
While women still face challenges including pay gaps, discrimination, and lack of representation in technical roles, their numbers continue rising across the tech sector. Key statistics:
– Women now hold 25% of computing roles, up from just 10% in the 1990s.
– 45% of the tech workforce is comprised of women at leading firms like Amazon and Apple.
– Demand grew 348% over the past decade for women with technical skills according to leading staffing firm Robert Half.
Yet room for improvement remains to achieve gender parity and open leadership pathways:
– Just 5% of technology CEOs are women.
– At midsize tech firms, only 6% of executive team members are women.
– Less than 20% of board members at public tech companies are women.
– Women earn 79 cents for every dollar men earn in equivalent tech roles.
Events supporting women in technology help address these gaps through networking, education, mentoring, celebrating accomplishments, and creating communities.
## The Value of Women in Tech Events
Thriving groups and events focused on women in technology generate tangible benefits:
– **Networking platforms** – Foster connections between peers, mentors, sponsors, and recruiters from various companies.
– **Recognition venue** – Provide a forum to highlight impactful women excelling as leaders, engineers, entrepreneurs, researchers, and influencers.
– **Skills development** – Sessions and workshops focused on building hard and soft skills needed to excel and advance.
– **Wellness support** – Discuss work-life balance, mental health, wellness, and overcoming burnout as a community.
– **Visibility boost** – Events raise media coverage showcasing diversity and accomplishments of women in the field.
– **Industry dialogue** – Drive conversations on advancing inclusion, policy reforms, pay equity, and culture change.
– **Inspiration and empowerment** – Motivate and energize women to persist in tech through community bonding, reinforcing all belong.
By rallying around a shared mission of advancement, groups develop women’s capabilities, networks, visibility, and influence.
## Notable Global Women in Tech Conferences
Many impactful women in technology event series occur worldwide:
**Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC)** – Massive annual conference by AnitaB.org drawing 25,000+ women technologists. Focuses on community, education, and career growth.
**Lesbians Who Tech** – Conferences and meetups focused on LGBTQ women and non-binary individuals in technology across 35+ cities.
**Wonder Women Tech** – Multicity event series providing leadership training, networking, and exposure for women driving innovation.
**European Women in Technology (EWIT)** – Leading European conference on supporting women tech founders, leaders, and professionals.
**India Women in Tech Summit** – Connects female tech professionals across India through meetups and major annual gathering.
**Ada’s List** – Organization running events, hackathons, mentorship programs, and job boards supporting women in technology globally.
These large benchmark events complement hundreds of local meetup groups, company-sponsored initiatives, mentoring programs, and virtual communities.
## Key Organizations Promoting Women in Technology
Several nonprofit organizations run ongoing programs to empower women pursuing technology careers:
### AnitaB.org
Founded in 1997, AnitaB.org advances women in technical fields through research, events, camps, and tools like bias training and job boards. They host the annual Grace Hopper Celebration.
### Girls in Tech
Global non-profit focused on engagement, education, and empowerment of women entering into technical industries and startups. Active in 50+ countries.
### Girls Who Code
Works to close gender gap in technology and engineering through clubs, after school programs, and summer camps to expose girls to computer science early.
### Women Who Code
International network of over 200,000 women in tech offering job boards, events, hackathons and free technical training programs.
### Black Girls Code
Provides programming workshops and bootcamps to give underrepresented black girls skills to pursue opportunities in computer science.
Groups like these provide critical resources and advocacy to young girls through experienced professionals.
## Why Women in Tech Initiatives Matter
Diversity, equity, and inclusion aren’t just buzzwords. Research shows tangible benefits to empowering women in technology:
– Startups with female executives achieved higher valuations according to studies by Boston Consulting Group.
– Teams with greater gender diversity drove innovation and better financial performance according to research published in Harvard Business Review.
– Aligned with ethical responsibility to provide equal opportunities and address historical imbalances.
– Provides role models for future generations of women pursuing STEM careers.
– Adds diversity of thought and problem-solving capabilities to lead to better designs, products and solutions.
Supporting women in tech conferences, groups, and initiatives continues driving positive change for the industry and society as a whole.
While progress manifests through growing female graduations in engineering and computing, expanded leadership representation, and awareness of problematic cultures, there remains ample room for improvement. Events uplifting women entering into and rising through technology fields play an invaluable role in maintaining momentum toward gender parity. The entire tech ecosystem must continue pushing forward.
Leave a Reply