Women in tech — the best way to address the issue of a shortage of techies. How Uzbekistan is dealing with it?

Women make up 16.8% of all employees, according to the findings of a poll done among IT Park residents.

Given that women make up 50% of the population of Uzbekistan, it is clear that the gap needs to be eliminated or at the very least reduced.

Along with restoring justice, this would assist in addressing the nation's severe shortage of IT professionals.

Why so few women work in IT

Uzbekistan is not the only country with a gender imbalance in IT. Almost all states face this problem in one way or another.

Women hold only 22% of all technical jobs in European corporations, according to a McKinsey report.

This is due to a number of factors, including the general poor development of IT as well as the patriarchal culture and historical gender inequality.

However, two key obstacles are frequently experienced across all nations.

The first is stereotypes.

For instance, there is still a perception in society that boys are more suited for technical sciences than girls are.

This misconception goes back to the writings of Aristotle, who believed that men are inherently think more rational than women.

Because of these biases, girls tend to believe that technology is not their area of expertise. As a result, men are more interested in IT than women are.

The second barrier is discrimination.

Even if the girl somehow avoided being influenced by stereotypes and chose to become a programmer, she still runs the risk of having trouble in the future getting a job and being promoted.

For instance, it was discovered a few years ago that Google was more likely to advance men up the job ladder even if women had equal or better qualifications.

Such discrimination leads to the fact that many women quickly become disappointed and leave for areas that are more “traditional” for women.

Why it is crucial to have as many women as possible working in IT

IT was long considered a male-dominated industry.

Over time, though, business executives came to understand that women offer a distinctive perspective on product creation and a new way of approaching problems.

The leaders of the nation’s then realized that the number of women in technology increased the prosperity of the nation.

Thus, the following significant benefits emerged:

• Women in teams at businesses lead to more inventive products. This was proven by a Harvard Business Review study.
• Women-founded businesses are more profitable. This was demonstrated by a Boston Consulting Group research.
• The gender pay gap in society gets reduced as more women embark on tech industry. The NCWIT study provided evidence for this.
• Women-owned businesses give social issues more consideration. That was established by the study from the Journal of Entrepreneurship & Organization Management.

Additionally, a study by the Kauffman Fellows indicated that companies with female founders recruit more women.

An excellent illustration of the domino effect, where one plus one causes the emergence of more ones.

What steps are being taken in Uzbekistan to bring more women to IT sector?

There are not many women working in technology in Uzbekistan right now, like in other nations.

Even in the few instances that a girl works in an IT company, she is typically given a non-technical position.

Therefore, 27% of respondents from IT Park said that the percentage of women working in non-technical positions is greater than 40%, and 9% claimed the figure is between 30% and 40%.

Furthermore, 87% of respondents stated that less than 40% of technical staff members are women.

In Uzbekistan, like in other countries, there are no institutional barriers preventing girls from pursuing careers in information technology; on the contrary, the problem rests on the issue of friendly culture.

It is important to challenge the stereotypes that "IT is a male profession," "technology is not for women," and other similar statements.

IT Park is now moving towards this direction. Several initiatives just started off last year:

IT Women - Karakalpakstan (jointly with USAID and supported by the Ministry of Digital Technologies).

IT training for women and girls in Karakalpakstan.

60 women and girls received no-cost instruction as part of the program (30 women enrolled in graphic design classes and 30 in SMM).

Skills4Girls (in collaboration with UNICEF).

IT training program for females between the ages of 12 and 18, including those with various forms of disabilities.

70 girls with disabilities were among the 214 participants educated during the Skills4Girls digital literacy project.

GAP – IT club for women

A discussion club whose objective is to address the issue of women working in the IT sector. It has already hosted a number of meetings with invited guests and experts.

Digital Internship Program

Internship for female IT graduates and entry-level young professionals. 53 women and girls had the chance to complete internships at IT companies as part of the program. 23 of them found employment, and the rest were able to extend their internships in companies.

Furthermore, extra instruction in IT expertise and digital marketing for female entrepreneurs took place in partnership with the Astrum IT Academy within the OSCE program.

Thanks to the program, 90 participants got admitted to the second stage of advanced training in IT tools for e-commerce and digital marketing, and 150 female entrepreneurs received instruction in IT and computer literacy.

The most effective way to address the issue of a shortage of IT experts and provide job opportunities for people

Several years ago, a research that included 1.4 million GitHub users was released.

It demonstrated that women's programming skills are not only equal to those of men, but in fact higher.

If females rarely embark on IT, that is because someone once assured them that the sector is not meant for women.

18 million people, or half the population, are women in Uzbekistan, and over 3 million of them are between the ages of 20 and 29.

Huge numbers. It also means a good prospect if girls are encouraged to pursue IT careers and a welcoming, friendly culture is established.

Although Uzbekistan has only recently started taking relevant measures, results are already evident. Expanding current initiatives, introducing new ones, overcoming stereotypes, and putting an end to discrimination will ultimately lead to rapid increase in a number of women engaged in tech industry.

That is the best way to tackle the lack of IT professionals and offer people job opportunities.

The brain can survive with one hemisphere, but using both will be more beneficial.

The same applies in the case of men and women in tech.

Information about the article’s author:

Timurmalik Elmuradov — analyst, R&D specialist, Msc of the Research University Higher School of Economics.

Author of "Skartaris Peak (https://t.me/skartariss)" - the leading Telegram channel about business, market and technology in Uzbekistan.

He was responsible for development at the “Univer Club Family” group of companies (Russia), online publication Daryo.uz. Co-founder and former CEO of Spot.uz.