Celebrating International Women's Day with 7 women who are changing the tech world
It’s no secret that men dominate the tech world. A 2020 survey showed that only 28% of the workforce at 51 of the top U.S. tech companies were made up by women and the turnover rate is also higher than in many other fields. This issue starts in the classroom, as less women opt for STEM education but there are other social, educational and economic issues that have led to the disproportionate representation of women in tech. However, progress is happening. Slowly, but it’s happening. Deloitte predicts that female workforce representation will increase by 2% from 2019 to 2022. Although women leave the tech industry at a much higher rate than men, there are plenty of women who stick to this industry and make it big.
Below are our top 7 female tech leaders who are already an inspiration for a new generation of leaders.
1. Reshma Saujani, Founder and CEO of Girls Who Code
Credit: Adrian Kinloch
As the first Indian American woman running for the US Congress, Reshma Saujani visited many local classrooms where she saw the gender gap in computing classes directly, so she decided to start Girls Who Code, a non-profit that aims to close this gap in new entry level tech jobs. So far they have taught 450.000 girls, half of them coming from underrepresented groups or low income backgrounds. It comes as no surprise, she has been recognised as Fortune World’s Greatest Leaders; Fortune 40 Under 40 and Forbes Most Powerful Women Changing the World among others.
2. Danah Boyd, Founder and President of Data & Research Institute
Credit: Science Friday
Danah Boyd, whose background is in researching how young people use social media as part of their everyday practices, has shifted her focus more towards examining how social inequalities relate to technology in the past few years. That’s why she founded Data & Society, an independent non-profit research organisation that studies the social consequences of data and automation, working together with researchers, artists, entrepreneurs, policymakers and technologists.
3. Edwina Dunn, Founder of dunnhumby and The Female Lead
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Edwina Dunn is a Big Data Pioneer and founder of dunnhumby, a company whose mission is to empower brands and retailers to build more meaningful customer experiences but she is probably most known for her non-profit, The Female Lead that was created to build the next generation of female leaders. Through this organisation they showcase lesser-known success stories of women in order to encourage and inspire the next generation of leaders to come. Edwina has been honoured with Britain’s OBE in 2019 for Services to Data and Business.
4. Dr. Joy Buolamwini, Founder and Executive Director of Algorithmic Justice League
Credit: Steven Senne
Dr. Joy Buolamwini, who completed her masters in algorithmic bias and recently finished her PhD at MIT, founded Algorithmic Justice League (AJL) back in 2016. In her Ted Talk she explains how she is fighting bias in machine learning. With AJL she wants to raise awareness of this bias and the impacts of AI that can sustain harmful forms of discrimination. Joy also advises policymakers on the harms of algorithmic bias and her work has been featured in a Netflix documentary called Coded Bias.
5. Cathy Hackl, Chief Metaverse Officer at Futures Intelligence Group
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Cathy Hackl is known as a futurist and a metaverse speaker as well as one of the Top Tech Voices on LinkedIn. She is the CEO and Chief Metaverse Officer of the Futures Intelligence Group, a consultancy that’s working with brands on their metaverse strategy and visibility in the virtual world. BigThink named Cathy as one of the top 10 most influential women in tech in 2020.
6. Gwynne Shotwell, President and Chief Operating Officer of SpaceX
Credit: Vern Evans Photo
Gwynne Shotwell joined SpaceX quite early on, in 2002, the year the company was founded. Starting as the VP of Business Development she helped the company grow and as COO she is looking after day to day operations and manages strategic relations. In 2018, she was named as Forbes’ America’s Top 50 Women in Tech.
7. Kathy Sierra, Programming Instructor and Game Developer
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Kathy Sierra has taught Java programming at Sun Microsystems and created Javaranch, a friendly place for java developers. Kathy’s Head First book series that includes topics like programming, software development, webs design, data analytics, statistics and more sold over one million copies.
Conclusion
Although there is a slow improvement happening in the gender imbalance for tech roles, this industry has a long way to go. The women on this list have largely contributed to the progress that have been made in the tech and business world and together with many more female tech leaders are paving the way for generations to come.