Home › Posts tagged advancing

Tag: advancing

Posted on Posted in Digital transformation, General topics Tagged with , , , , ,

Despite national conversations about a lack of women in IT, women remain largely underrepresented in STEM roles, according to a study by the National Science Foundation. And the pipeline doesn’t suggest a near-term correction, as only 19% of computer science degrees were awarded to women in 2016, down from 27% in 1997. Women also typically make less than their male counterparts in science, engineering, mathematics, and computer science occupations — with an average median salary of $66,000 per year, versus $90,000 for men.

And, according to recent data, representation of women in IT is trending in the wrong direction. In 2022, more than half of companies lost 20% of their tech workforce to attrition, with women technologists (16%) leaving at a higher rate than men (13%). With twice as many women having left tech jobs in 2022 than in 2021, representation of women in the IT industry is currently at pre-pandemic levels, with 27% of technology roles filled by women compared to nearly 29% in 2020, according to data from AnitaB.org.

Such issues have played a large role in the rise of organizations focused on empowering and supporting women in tech roles. Today’s networking and advocacy landscape finds a growing array of programs and organizations for girls, women, and anyone who identifies as a woman — and plenty are also open to male allies. Here are 18 key organizations dedicated to uplifting women in tech, pushing inclusivity in the workplace and closing the diversity gap.

18 organizations for women in tech

Ada Developers AcademyAnitaB.orgBlack Girls CodeChange CatalystGirl Develop ItGirls in TechGirls Who CodeLeague of Women CodersNational Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT)SwitchTechLadiesTechWomenWomen in STEMWomen in Tech (WIT)Women in Technology (WIT)Women in Tech Council (WTC)Women in Technology International (WITI)Women Who Code

Ada Developers Academy

Ada Developers Academy is a nonprofit, tuition-free coding school for women and gender expansive adults that also prioritizes BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and low-income people. The training program offers a collaborative learning environment as well as individualized support through mentors, tutors, mental health support, and affinity groups. Participants also take part in a paid “applied learning internship” that teaches students how to write code and the skills to become a software developer.

AnitaB.org

The AnitaB.org is a nonprofit organization for women in tech that was founded in 1997 by computer scientists Anita Borg and Telle Whitney. The organization seeks to support women in technology and to “connect, inspire, and guide women in computing.” AnitaB.org also includes Systers, which was founded in 1987 by Anita Borg as the first online community for women in tech. Systers is still functioning today and is now the “largest email community of women in technical computing” with more than 8,500 members worldwide.

Black Girls Code

Kimberly Bryant founded Black Girls Code in part because she felt culturally isolated in her electrical engineering and computer programming courses in college. While women are underrepresented in STEM fields, that’s even more true for women of color working in the industry. Black Girls Code is an organization that aims to support young and pre-teen girls of color to help give them the resources they need to succeed in STEM fields. Sparking an interest in technology at a young age is important to encourage girls to embrace an interest in STEM and to show them that a career in tech is an option.

Change Catalyst

Change Catalyst is an organization focused on diversity in tech for women and minorities — it was developed in a direct response to Silicon Valley tech industry diversity numbers released in 2014. Change Catalyst “builds inclusive tech ecosystems through strategic advising, startup programs and resources, and a series of events around the globe,” according to the organization’s website. The organization speaks at all-hands events, team offsites, leadership retreats, industry conferences, and startup programs in addition to developing L&D programming, hosting inclusive events, and designing customized training solutions. Change Catalyst also offers one-on-one inclusive leadership coaching to help leaders drive DEI in their organizations.

Girl Develop It

Girl Develop It offers web and software development courses at affordable rates in a “judgement-free zone.” The nonprofit organization offers hands-on programs that teach women and non-binary professional skills for software development and supports a diverse network of women in STEM. Girl Develop It has charters in 60 cities across the country, but if you can’t find one in your area you can submit a request for a new chapter where you live. The goal of the organization is to help eliminate barriers for women and non-binary individuals through live and hybrid workshops on career topics, one on one instructor study, and learning and networking events for members.

Girls in Tech

Girls in Tech is a nonprofit organization that aims to stop gender inequality in the tech industry by empowering women through coding courses, bootcamps, and hackathons for girls and women of all ages and professions. The mission is to “support women with the access and community they need to succeed in tech.” The organization started in San Francisco in 2007 and has since grown to include over 62,000 members in 33 countries. Events and programs vary by chapter and are designed to suit the specific needs of each community.

Girls Who Code

Girls Who Code is an organization dedicated to closing the gender gap in tech and redefining what it means to be a programmer. It includes after-school clubs, summer courses and programs, and career advice and networking support for college students. According to data from Girls Who Code, 66% of girls aged six to 12 are interested in computing programs, but that drops to 32% for girls aged 13 to 17 and down to just 4% for college freshmen. The organization focuses in keeping girls and young women engaged in STEM fields as they grow by giving them support and a community.

League of Women Coders

Formerly Ladies Who Code, the League of Women Coders is a “grassroots collective” for coders, hackers, and anyone interesting in learning more about programming. The group meets monthly to work on projects, catch up, ask questions, and share ideas about the industry. The next two meetups are planned for New York City and Washington, DC. Meetings are open to anyone who identifies as a woman and typically include refreshments, food, and the occasional speaker.

National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT)

The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) is a community of “change leaders focused on advancing innovation by correcting underrepresentation in computing.” They offer several programs both for professionals as well as for kids, teens, and young adults. The organization, which was chartered by the National Science Foundation in 2004 and was one of the first organizations to focus on women’s participation in computing fields, also offers support to companies that want to strengthen DEI in their organizations through hiring, awareness, inclusion, and systemic change. They also provide research and stats on diversity and inclusion in the tech industry for women and BIPOC technologists.

Switch

Switch, formerly known as Women 2.0, is a for-profit media and tech company that creates and delivers content, programming, products, and services designed to bring awareness to issues surrounding inequality and inclusion in the tech industry. Switch provides programs for founders who are trying to grow startups and provides networking opportunities and resources on capital, hiring, workplace culture, and more. The goal is to create a more diverse and inclusive environment, especially when it comes to startups.

TechLadies

TechLadies is an organization that focuses on connecting members with jobs and opportunities in tech through an online network, a free job board, and events and resources to help members learn new skills to grow their careers. TechLadies’ more than 150,000 members receive access to a private online community, weekly webinars and a library of on-demand webinars, goal-setting challenges to stay motivated, and member-only online events. In 2022, Ada’s List joined TechLadies, bringing their nearly 10,000 members over to continue their mission to uplift women in tech. 

TechWomen

TechWomen is an initiative of the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs — the global organization brings together women in STEM fields from Africa, Central and South Asia, and the Middle East with those working in Silicon Valley and San Francisco to build a stronger network in the industry. To join the organization, you’ll need at least two years of professional experience working in a STEM field with a bachelor’s degree or equivalent. It works as a mentorship and exchange program, bringing women over from other countries to the US to “engage in project-based mentorships at leading companies” in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Women in STEM

Women in STEM is an organization that matches female university students and professionals with high school girls to encourage them to stay engaged in STEM. The aim is to increase representation in STEM fields through one-to-one mentoring partnerships. Mentors offer mentees college and career advice to help young girls understand the path to college and a career in STEM. Women in STEM also organizes guest speakers, discussion panels, and other programs for elementary, middle, and high school aged girls to get them excited about the field. 

Women in Tech (WIT)

Women in Tech (WIT) is an organization focused on fostering DEI in STEM by promoting the empowerment of girls and women globally when it comes to education, business, digital inclusion, and advocacy. WIT offers a global mentoring program for those seeking mentorship in career and leadership, technology, startups, digital marketing, project and product management, business analytics, and UX/UI design. The mentorship program is no-cost for both mentors and mentees, and it involves three individual sessions over the span of three months, where participants are given access onboarding and training materials as well as closed community meetings and events.

Women in Technology (WIT)

Women in Technology (WIT) is committed to advancing women in technology through leadership development, education initiatives, and networking and mentorship opportunities for women technologists at every level of their career. WIT offers the mentor-protégé program, which matches participants with experienced professionals for mentorship. Protégés are matched with four different members over the course of five months, allowing mentors and mentees to connect with different professionals who can offer unique insight into the industry.

Women in Tech Council (WTC)

The Women in Tech Council (WTC) is focused on developing programs that help diversity the pipeline from high school to the C-Suite. WTC offers programs on DEI, women in the C-suite, women-led startups, innovation, and inclusion. They also offer mentorship, networking, and learning opportunity for members, in addition to several different events including the WTC Summit, where topics around tech talent, building careers, and talent trends are highlighted and discussed in panel sessions.

Women in Technology International (WITI)

Women in Technology International (WITI) was founded in 1989 as the International Network of Women in Technology and was later rebranded in 2001. WITI is a global organization that connects over two million women in STEM with membership in the US, Hong Kong, Great Britain, Australia, and Mexico. WITI organizes events, meetups, career coaching, speaker events, and more across the US and around the world. The organization is dedicated to empowering innovation and building a future of inclusivity in the workplace.

Women Who Code

Women Who Code focuses on empowering women in tech and redefining the industry so that women are equally represented at leaders, executives, founders, VCs, board members, and software engineers. The focus is on empowering women with the coding and programming skills they need to advance in their careers, educating companies on how to promote, retain and hire women and establishing a global community of mentorship and support for women engineers.

More on Women in IT

Gender gapped: The state of gender diversity in ITWomen IT leaders bring fresh perspectives to corporate boards20 worthwhile conferences for women in techWomen in tech statistics: The hard truths of an uphill battle12 awards that recognize women in tech7 factors women look for in an IT employer — and how to address them

Careers, Diversity and Inclusion, Women in IT

Posted on Posted in Digital transformation, General topics Tagged with , , , , , ,

The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) has grown over the course of a century into a $40 billion organization with $1.2 trillion in assets under management serving the financial needs of people at more than 15,000 institutions across academia, government, medicine, cultural, and other nonprofit organizations. But all that didn’t phase Sastry Durvasula when he joined in February 2022 to fill an unusually broad CIO-plus role, leading the global technology and client services organizations.

“Financial services as an industry has been going through a level of transformation for the last decade with the advent of new technologies, AI and digital disruption,” he says. “I’ve had a front row seat at some of these big transformations. Post-pandemic, every company is now going through it, which is a great thing for the financial services industry largely. The question now is how to empower our colleagues in serving our clients, and how to create new experiences. On one side, you think about the different generations to serve and experiences to curate, whether they’re higher end, medical, research or nonprofit. Then on the asset management side, how to invest to make it work better. So it’s a great opportunity to be part of an iconic forum where we can make a difference.”

Even if priorities shift within business transformation, digital business, or approaches to leverage data and AI, going into 2023, Durvasula always goes back to TIAA’s business strategy as his north star, which is leading lifetime income, delighting clients, and strengthening how they operate.

“In the post-pandemic world, we’re testing the limits of the core,” he says. “Acceleration on its transformation is happening. It probably was gradually but now we have a concerted approach to it. It’s a large undertaking to drive technology or system transformation for a company of our size and heritage. Technical debt, however, never goes away. The goal is to leapfrog in some of these technology layers, and prioritize the top 20 initiatives across these different layers. Some of these things are foundational to the future, and that’s where we’re going to put a lot more energy.”

CIO.com’s Maryfran Johnson recently spoke with Durvasula about overlapping responsibilities, and being respectful, through technology and talent, in changing a long-established and successful business core. Here are some edited excerpts of that conversation. Watch the full video below for more insights.

On a mission statement: Mine is a three-legged stool. One leg is powering the strategic shifts of the business. We want to be a leader in providing lifetime income for all, and we want to delight our clients and strengthen how we operate. The second is fueling innovation. Technology is at the forefront of any business and for our business, there’s a lot of stuff that’s going to change, driven by technology. The third leg, which is the most complex and difficult yet most fulfilling, is the transformation of the core. That’s the beauty of a role like this, where you’re part of a 100-year-old firm built through generations of technology. We have the most cutting-edge technology on one side of the spectrum, and then we have data centers, legacy systems and large mainframes still running in the back end. So how do we transform that core to drive forward the vision and the experiences and the innovation. That is a big focus. We have a companywide technology ecosystem transformation initiative underway, which is sponsored by the board and sets a big priority for the firm.

On combined roles: I would say to my friends who are CIOs or going to be CIOs, this is the best time to be in the industry as a technology leader. The rules and horizons for the CIO are changing and my role is a classic example. I had the privilege in my prior roles leading digital and technology or data, AI and technology, or data and digital in AI. I have different competencies, but here I have the opportunity to lead technology and all of the client services. So together, this function I lead as an enterprise shared service for the firm, is close to 60% of our colleagues in the company. And client services colleagues take a call from the client, a participant, all the way to managing complaints and financial claims and fraud management, to a lot of the middle office and back-office operations. There’s great opportunity to enrich the experience for the client, handle complaints through automation, or drive intelligent automation in the back end. So it’s nice to have the technology organization that’s going to drive this.

On finding talent: Finding technology talent in any industry is a challenge. Right now, there’s a lot of demand especially in the new normal we live in post-pandemic, and industries like financial services are on the receiving end of the challenge more than others. But the differentiation that TIAA has, which very few companies can actually talk about, is we are a Fortune 100 company that’s born for purpose. Everything we do is purpose-driven. All the profits we make we are giving to the participants at the end of the day, which is important especially if you think about the next generation of talent, who is fascinated by purpose and serving others. So we have a very compelling story to tell as a brand.

On female representation in tech: The main goal is to reduce the gender gap or eliminate it, and that’s done through empowerment. There’s a lot of work that happens through Girls in Tech where we create mentoring networks. Different industries, age groups, paths, and careers, whether they’re technical or nontechnical, we’ve created a level of mentoring networks and a dialogue that happens. There’s a lot of empowerment through education. We’ve done a lot of workshops, master classes, and we’ve created a job posting set of tools where people who are members of Girls in Tech can actively seek opportunities. That’s one side of the spectrum. The other is advanced research. In my prior role, there was a research study sponsored by McKinsey and Girls in Tech to get to the bottom of some of these core fundamental issues we have. Another is empowering innovators, incubate new ideas and come up with businesses and opportunities, and grading them. The male ally shift is also playing an important role, so a lot of my peers in the industry are leaning in more. Together, I think we can make a big difference.

Business IT Alignment, CIO, Digital Transformation, Financial Services Industry, Roles