Tech times are changing<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
So are women having an increasing impact on the tech industry?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kevin Noonan, a research director at technology analyst firm Ovum, says while women are still under-represented in the ICT sector there is a lot of variation across particular ICT professions.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIn traditional areas such as ICT support technicians, women only occupy 19% of jobs but in areas that involve more business interaction such as sales, business analysis, security and database administration, women hold around 25% of jobs,\u201d Noonan says.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is important to note that women are more strongly represented in areas that are likely to continue to have strong growth prospects, as combined business and technical skills are likely to be well regarded over time.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But Noonan says there is still a long way to go before women are even close to attaining equal representation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ICT profession has traditionally suffered from a geeky image and this has tended in the past to be a disincentive for women in ICT jobs,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the ICT profession grows and matures it appears the representation of women is slowly changing.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Foad Fadaghi, research director of technology market analyst firm Telstye, believes female tech entrepreneurship is on the rise in Australia.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are often businesses that have joint founders, of which both sexes are represented, as well as many standalone female entrepreneurs,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a reflection of the greater business community, where females are under-represented.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Familiar barriers<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
There are various organisations attempting to foster female tech entrepreneurship, including Women 2.0 \u2013 a global network and social platform for aspiring and current female founders of technology ventures.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Women 2.0 spokesperson Azra Panjwani says while the industry continues to be dominated by men it is starting to see more \u201cpush-throughs\u201d on the part of female entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are seeing more and more women interested in entering the industry and the demand for an organisation like Women 2.0 has increased just in the last three to five years alone,\u201d Panjwani says.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we are far from having equal representation I do believe that there is an awareness of the situation by both genders and an opportunity to make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
According to Panjwani the challenges faced by female tech entrepreneurs are shared by their counterparts in other industries.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThe challenges are basic and probably apply across the board to women in leadership,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThere aren\u2019t a ton of females and role models for our generation \u2013 that job will be up to us to fulfil for the generation ahead of us,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThe field is a bit of a boys\u2019 club right now but it\u2019s ripe for change. More and more VCs are aware of how valuable women entrepreneurs can be and while some biases do still exist the number of people who are \u2018in the club\u2019 and willing to help make changes is what\u2019ll ultimately help us make serious breakthroughs.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
StartupSmart spoke to three female techies to gauge the health of female tech entrepreneurship and to find out how the industry is changing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Peruse images of the founders of the world\u2019s leading tech start-ups and you\u2019ll probably notice a few common features \u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,24,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43388"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}