{"id":43670,"date":"2023-10-20T15:30:18","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/melinda-gates-on-the-enormous-mistakes-the-tech-sector-must-avoid-to-stop-history-repeating-itself-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:30:18","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:30:18","slug":"melinda-gates-on-the-enormous-mistakes-the-tech-sector-must-avoid-to-stop-history-repeating-itself-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/melinda-gates-on-the-enormous-mistakes-the-tech-sector-must-avoid-to-stop-history-repeating-itself-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Melinda Gates on the \u201cenormous\u201d mistakes the tech sector must avoid to stop history repeating itself – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Melinda
Image: Brett Power <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

History is set to repeat itself and we will see a new era of inequality unless a considerable effort is made to include women and underrepresented minorities in the tech sector today, Melinda Gates says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think back, to be honest, about the framing of our country,\u201d Gates said during a talk at the Dreamforce conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho was sitting at the table when we framed the constitution? There weren\u2019t women and there weren\u2019t minorities and if you look at how long it\u2019s taken to overcome that writing of the constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, Gates said that it\u2019s a critical time for underrepresented groups to participate in the design and advancement of technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn computer science, if you think about where we are going with technology, it\u2019s pervasive,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere we\u2019re going with artificial intelligence and with data is astronomical. If we don\u2019t have women and underrepresented minorities at the table we\u2019re going to keep making some of the mistakes that right now seem somewhat small but they actually could be enormous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gates, who began her career at Microsoft in the early 90s, said the tech industry is one of the few where women\u2019s participation has significantly declined.<\/p>\n

\u201c[A] big glaring hole to me is the tech sector,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

With women noticeably missing from executive boards and Forbes 500 companies, Gates is leading an effort to gather big data on women around the world to identify what\u2019s causing the gaps and address them.<\/p>\n

What educators can do to tackle the leaky pipeline<\/h3>\n

With the best paying jobs and opportunities emerging out of the tech sector, Gates said it\u2019s vital to start addressing some the biases against women on their ability to code, lead and be effective board members.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody\u2019s starting to look at the leaky pipeline,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Universities and colleges are key points of interest for this, she said, with these institutions playing instrumental roles in changing the stats and encouraging a diverse range of people to dive into the tech sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave a set of problems that women gravitate towards naturally,\u201d Gates said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake sure you\u2019ve got adjunct, associate and real professors who are women teaching the class. Make sure you make the environment not the basement of some engineering building but it\u2019s in the humanities building, its out in the auditorium, and that there\u2019s role modelling going on.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that women in society have more doubt that men so you have to do a little bit more, just like you do in high school on math and science, you have to do a little bit more to keep women\u2019s self-esteem up.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a woman gets into that popular CS class and likes it, and you keep her in class one and class two, you\u2019re likely to keep her all the way through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gates added that universities doing a good job at driving up diversity in their tech and computer science courses should have their strategies adopted by other institutions across the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cComputer science ought to be just a fantastic place where droves of young women want to go into and want to code,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook,<\/em> Twitter,<\/em> LinkedIn<\/em>.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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