May is also a popular conference month, and our calendar looks like that too. This year, the “Stay in Tech” conference in Berlin, organized by the German Informatics Society (GI), She TransformsIT, Fraunhofer ICT Group, CEPIS, and Charter DiversIT, kicked off the wave for us.
In Berlin, I sat on a panel with great speakers – Bernd Holthaus, HR Director of German INTEL, Edna Kropp from German Informatics, and Robert Baker from UK-based Potentia Talent Consulting. We discussed practical solutions on how to create the conditions for women not to leave IT. Did you know that up to 56% of women who work in IT roles leave the IT sector between 10 and 20 years into their careers, which is double that of men? Imagine having a system in place that not only keeps them in IT, but leverages their capabilities and moves them up the career ladder. The impact on GDP must be staggering.
At the same time, let me quote Byron Nicolaides, founder and CEO of PeopleCert in Greece: “ Achieving parity is not a moral imperative, but a strategic advantage over competitors.” Only bad corporate leadership will abandon a strategic advantage by pretending that everything is ok in our company, even though we still have only 10% women in IT positions.
Sporka and its Leaders Loading
I flew from Berlin directly, really directly to the stage of Slovenska Sporitelna and their Leaders Loading conference, with this year’s theme Having the courage to take the first step. I really enjoy watching the reactions of the audience when they hear sentences and words about how we raise our children, about prejudices, of which we are often the victims. I can see how they’re just talking to each other: “Wow, I never thought of that.” For example, little things like leaving out of the girls’ praise expressions like “you’re so pretty, nice, smart.” Praise their work that made you happy. Leave out commenting on their appearance. Or that the computer really should be in a neutral place in the home, with equal access for son and daughter. If we put it in the son’s room, we’ve buried the motivation for the daughter.
Healthy business with UNION
UNION health insurance company put on a great Healthy Company conference. Because every company is only as healthy as its employees feel. In a panel with Tanya Ondrejkova, founder of Pelikan, and Laura Kello Kalinska, a journalist from aktuality.sk, we covered the topic of how women feel in male-dominated professions.
Honestly, I was most amused by the question whether anyone has ever referred to us as careerists. I take that as a compliment. Because it means that our work has visible results that are noticed by society, that have an impact within society. And that’s a great reward.
About Reading Comprehension at Forbes Business Fest
Well, my final highlight of May was the Forbes Business Fest. I spoke about the IT skills we need to stay in the job market on the HR stage. And I feel like the slide that made the biggest waves in the audience was the one with the text “reading comprehension”. You read that right. Because in vain will I be able to code perfectly if I can’t understand the assignment I’m asked to solve. Feel free to object that this is not an IT skill. However, in the rush of IT “pressures” for new knowledge, we sometimes forget the basic ones that we need before we can work our way up to IT. The defensive attitude that they don’t teach us that in school may be true, but we can’t use it as an excuse anymore.
So please read, reflect on what you read, design your own solutions to even small problems. By training, masters are raised.
And when should you start learning IT skills? Right now. We don’t have time to wait. Even if you feel that what you know now is enough, that’s deceptive. You need to add something from the IT fundamentals spectrum to your skill set today. Data, Excel, how the internet works, information security. It’s a lot. Just don’t wait, let’s get started.
Have a great summer of learning!
