{"id":45645,"date":"2023-10-20T15:45:20","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/government-awards-recognise-the-entrepreneurs-working-to-improve-diversity-in-the-australian-tech-sector-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:45:20","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:45:20","slug":"government-awards-recognise-the-entrepreneurs-working-to-improve-diversity-in-the-australian-tech-sector-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/government-awards-recognise-the-entrepreneurs-working-to-improve-diversity-in-the-australian-tech-sector-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Government awards recognise the entrepreneurs working to improve diversity in the Australian tech sector – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tech<\/div>\n

Entrepreneur and founders aiming to improve the diversity of the Australian tech sector have been recognised in a new series of awards run by the Victorian government.<\/p>\n

Code Like a Girl took out the first Victorian Innovation Minister\u2019s Award at the annual Tech Diversity Gala ball held last week.<\/p>\n

The title is one in a series of new awards introduced by Victoria\u2019s innovation minister Philip Dalidakis to recognise and celebrate people working actively to improve gender and cultural diversity in the local tech sector.<\/p>\n

Code Like a Girl, founded by developer Ally Watson, runs events, workshops and support projects to increase the number of women in digital leadership roles.<\/p>\n

Watson says the winning the award was completely unexpected.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a grassroots initiative, we do all this work in our spare time, on nights and weekends,\u201d Watson tells StartupSmart.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were shocked, surprised and overwhelmed to say the least. It really means a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year marks Tech Diversity\u2019s second anniversary, and it continues to put a spotlight on the problem of a lack of diversity in the tech sector.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the event, Dalidakis said more needs to be done given women represent under 20% of Australia’s digital tech sector, only 14% of tech graduates are women and 30% will leave the field within 15 years of service.<\/p>\n

Dalidakis adds that the state Labor Government has taken measurable steps<\/a> to ensure all its government boards are made up of at least 50% women, while its innovation expert body LaunchVic is the first of its kind in the country to appoint more women than men.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the event, Dalidakis said the efforts of those shortlisted for Tech Diversity awards and the winners themselves were a testament to Victoria\u2019s rich digital workforce.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe quality of the shortlists, let alone the winners, prove that gender and culturally diverse teams really do give you the best chance of being great,\u201d Dalidakis said.<\/p>\n

\u201cVictoria\u2019s tech industry is leading the country in attracting major global tech leaders to base here and generating revenues of more than $34 million annually for the economy but there is no doubt, we need more diversity \u2013 it is what will make our industry great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since its launch in 2015<\/a>, Code Like a Girl has run nearly 10 events on virtual reality through to gaming, and is now planning to launch a series of coding workshops for female students in Year 1 to 12.<\/p>\n

The initiative will be supported by Envato, Touchcorp Limited and DiUS.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really hoping that we\u2019re going to encourage these young girls to consider a career in coding,\u201d Watson says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something I\u2019ve wanted to do for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Code Like a Girl is now looking to expand nationwide and plans are underway for its first year anniversary.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d like to celebrate with a party dedicated to sisterhood and tech, and collaboration of communities and industries,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

More than 10 leaders from education and government through to business and advertising were recognised at this year\u2019s Tech Diversity Gala.<\/p>\n

Among them was Avanade for its projects \u2018Proudly supporting LGBTI at Avanade\u2019 and \u2018Realising results through diversity and inclusion initiatives\u2019.<\/p>\n

Watson says that events like this are crucial for promoting the sector and recognising those that are carving the way forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Tech Diversity Gala is really great because it recognises the initiatives [and people] that are working hard in the tech space,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really good encouragement and it sets the standard.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Entrepreneur and founders aiming to improve the diversity of the Australian tech sector have been recognised in a new series<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14,27,24,22,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45645"}],"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=45645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}