New research by Microsoft offers insights into how more girls can be encouraged and supported in pursuing STEM careers.

The World Economic Forum reports that by 2020, for every digital job created, four traditional jobs will be displaced for a man – but 20 will be displaced for a woman, making it critical to keep young girls interested and staying in these career paths.

STEM is creative, challenging, and it is what future innovation is built on
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Following International Women’s Day, Microsoft unveiled the results of a survey amongst women and girls which reveals some interesting facts about why we still see such gender inequality of representation in STEM fields, and suggesting ways to tackle these problems.

Encouragement from teachers, parents, and mentors is a crucial factor in attracting and retaining female talent to STEM careers
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For example, while 72% of girls surveyed say it is important for them to have a job that directly helps the world and 91% describe themselves as creative, only 60% understand how STEM subjects are relevant for their lives and the types of jobs and things they could do with STEM knowledge. When they do learn about real-world STEM jobs and accomplishments, their perception of the creativity and positive impact of STEM double in some cases.

The World Economic Forum reports that by 2020, for every digital job created, four traditional jobs will be displaced for a man – but 20 will be displaced for a woman
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As one high-school student put it: “The word ‘engineer,’ it’s misunderstood, I think to most people it sounds like more of a masculine-based job.”

Kiki Wolfkill, Studio Head for Halo Transmedia says knowledge of technology is something that can open many opportunities for women, and it is important that they understand that STEM subjects are fundamentally creative.

“It took me longer than it should have to realize that everyone telling me that because I was creative that I wasn’t cut out for math or science was WRONG. Creativity and STEM are not mutually exclusive and in fact, so much better together. There are so many forces at work as girls are learning their way and it’s easy to get discouraged or to lose confidence. STEM is creative, challenging, and it is what innovation for the future is built on. STEM is not one thing – it is the ability to create/use/evolve technology to build a better world and it needs diverse voices and backgrounds – that has to be encouraged and nurtured.”

Yet the study identifies some of the common stumbling blocks that such women who achieved successful STEM careers had to overcome along the way:

Nearly half (49%) of women currently working in STEM say that they have faced stereotypes in the field and 57% of women in technology fields specifically say they have faced stereotypes as a woman, as Shannon Loftis, General Manager of Publishing, Xbox recalls:

“I was once accused of cheating by a professor who just could not believe I had grasped the subject matter of an advanced calculus course. There have been many setbacks, both early and late, and regardless of the cause, I’ve always found it worthwhile to work around, plow through, and keep on. I wish I had more awareness of my female predecessors prior to entering college. I feel like I stumbled into the field. I want to share what I’ve learned so women can aim at what I’ve had (and then aim higher, and higher). Early access to STEM thinking, to acquiring fluency in technology and math, opens the mind and the path to whatever comes next.”

Another finding that emerges is how the perception that STEM careers not a natural fit for women builds up over time. Only 31 percent middle school girls believe that jobs requiring coding and programming are “not for them” but by the time they get to high school that number jumps to 40%, and 58% college women count themselves out of these jobs.

The perception that STEM careers not a natural fit for women builds up over time.
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To counter this, it is important to provide girls with activities to connect their interests with STEM subjects. The hands-on experience girls get in STEM clubs and activities stokes their interest: 75% of girls who participate in STEM clubs/activities understand the types of jobs and things they could do with STEM knowledge (compared to 53% who do not participate in such activities). One 8^th grader told the study:

“I want a teacher who wants to be there and has new ideas about how to take on life, especially for us girls because we feel cornered by all the pressure to make money and take care of family and friends. My tests say I’m a good engineer and I wish I knew what that looked like in real life. I want to see women in STEM careers on posters in the hall, in our history and science texts, and visit our classes.”

Encouragement from teachers, parents, and mentors is also a crucial factor in attracting and retaining female talent to STEM careers. 65% of middle school girls who are encouraged by a parent say they’re likely to study computer science in high school, compared to 36% who haven’t been encouraged by either parent. 61% of girls who know a women in a STEM profession feel powerful when doing STEM, compared to 44% who don’t know a woman in STEM, yet only 36% of girls know a woman in a STEM profession.

“It's critical to mentor girls from classroom to the boardroom,” agrees Toni Townes-Whitley, Corporate Vice President of Industry for Microsoft. ”We need to ensure that young women with STEM backgrounds participate in interdisciplinary functions from design/build to consult/implementation processes in the tech industry and as elements of digital transformation in all other industries. The best part of working in a STEM field – for me – is the ability to envision, experience and engage in the transformation of how businesses operate, people work and live, and societal issues get addressed with technology.”

Bonnie Ross, Head of 343 Studios (which makes the Halo games) agrees that it is difficult for women to stick with pursuing a career in STEM when there isn’t a large support group of other women in class.

“It can be stressful, intimidating and lonely.  It can also be difficult to see the connection of CS or engineering degrees to what you’re passionate about. That being said, I fundamentally believe in the next 5-10 years, that regardless of job function (writing, film, marketing, etc.), some form of technical background will be needed or desired for the job candidate.  I believe candidates that have any technical experience, will get the nod over those that don’t.  I think we need to mentor young girls and women to help show them what they can achieve with technology---not what technology is, but what they can create with technology.”

Helen Chiang, General Manager of Minecraft also recalls how her parents’ support helped her stay the course:

“It’s incredibly hard to be an outlier, especially during the teenage years, and learning in a community of peers that had similar interests kept me from leaving STEM early because it wasn’t considered popular in my regular high school. Where I grew up, it wasn’t popular for girls to be smart or interested in challenging subjects within STEM. I went through a period of wondering whether I should pretend to not understand subjects or dumb myself down so that I would be liked. I have to credit my parents, who reinforced in me from an early age that it’s much more important to always be curious, always be learning, and continue to challenge yourself -- than to want to be liked. Friends and popularity come and fade, but what’s in your brain should stay with you a lifetime.”

Some of the report’s key recommendations include:

• Supporting extracurricular activities that teach girls how to create and build confidence through STEM
• Emphasizing the link between STEM and creativity
• Showing girls and young women that there are real-world, world-changing jobs in STEM and computer science.
• Ensuring teachers interact with girls as much as boys and in qualitatively similar ways
• Encouraging parents, teachers and other parental figures in a girl’s life to support and foster interest in STEM
• Showing how interest in STEM and computer science can lead to success in school and in a career.
• Providing positive role models and mentors in STEM careers

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter

The post Infographic: The STEM Gender Gap appeared first on Tech Trends.

Diversity is essential to innovation, so it’s a sad to witness the enduring paradox of white male dominance in a sector such as tech. While there’s much left to do, however, in this guest post Ben Barlow looks at some hopeful signs emerging from the Fintech sector.

Fintech is still trailing behind other sectors in terms of employing women at senior levels
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Fintech came under criticism recently when it was reported that it is trailing far behind other industries in terms of having women employed at senior levels. The Financial Times reported worrying statistics on the percentage of women executives in Fintech globally, which is just 8%, compared with the 22% in the major banks.

The representation percentage of women in Fintech stands at around 8% compared to 22% in banks
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While the figures for women at senior levels in the banks aren’t particularly stellar either, the gap in Fintech does raise some questions. There are various theories around why it is so much bigger than the banking gender gap – for instance that Fintech is fed by both finance and technology as industries, and there are less women in the tech sector. But how is Fintech as an industry supporting women who do aspire to senior positions, and making sure their companies are appealing environments for professional women going forward?

How do we ensure that companies are supporting women who aspire to senior posts?
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It is important to note that while there may only be 8% representation from women at the very highest levels (board level executives), more women are finding success in Fintech careers right now, and those in senior roles do not see the small number of women at the top level as an impediment to their own career progression. Kathy Adams, Head of Financial Planning and Analysis for ETX Capital, came to work with the Fintech brand seven years ago having had experience in other sectors, including real estate and media. She believes that – at least as far as her company is concerned – the necessary elements are in place to support ambitious and talented women to succeed in reaching their goals.

There has been a real positive change in recent years in terms of networking opportunities for women
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Kathy Adams –  ETX Capital

“I’ve never felt this was an issue here at ETX as I was recruited by a woman, and when I came in there were other women at senior levels in the business. The number of women across the business has also steadily increased in the time I’ve been here, most noticeably in the technology roles.”

Adams also feels there is a supportive attitude amongst female professionals in her industry, and believes this is an important factor in driving improvements from within the sector.

“I’ve noticed a real positive change in the last few years in terms of networking opportunities for women within the industry and initiatives set up by women to support their peers and the next generation of women coming in.”

She added that there are important, on-going ways the industry can help foster a culture that makes female professionals feel welcome and valued, such as supporting mentoring schemes for junior staff, taking a zero tolerance approach to discrimination, as well as making sure that positive role models such as her own are recognized and serve to inspire the next generation of girls to enter the profession in the first place.

“In terms of being a positive example, it’s important to make sure the female success stories get put out there and recognised,” she says.

While it can be easy to identify problems in gender equality within a sector, it is much harder to find concrete solutions. And while it is important to continue to call out bias and inequality, it is also important to recognize where strides are being made in the right direction, and make sure we build on that to ensure a better and more diverse tech industry for everyone.

For companies looking to gain a competitive edge through technology, Tech Trends offers strategic Virtual Reality and Digital Transformation Consultancy services tailored to your brand.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Tackling Fintech’s Gender Gap Problem appeared first on Tech Trends.

Technology can help drive innovation, but the businesses model of the future needs to be built around diversity.

It’s all too easy to get discouraged when, year after year, reports come out showing that the gender pay gap lingers around like a bad smell (average of 18% difference as of 2016 according to the IFS)

Then you turn to our most innovative industries, such as tech: There you find that 96% of VCs are men, that they only invest 8% of their money on companies Co-founded by women, and discouragement starts turning to despair.

96% of VCs are men, and that they only invest 8% of their money on companies Co-founded by women
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But then someone like Cindy Gallop comes along, painting a picture of the future that’s as hopeful as it is kick-ass, and you walk away knowing that things will change – mainly because the status quo is just bad business, and it’s eating away not only at our happiness, but at our profits. And as she told a rapt audience at FutureFest last weekend – repurposing an infamous anti-gun control quote – “The only thing that can really stop someone with a bad business is someone with a better business.”

The only thing that can really stop someone with a bad business is someone with a better business.
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If you want to design the business of the future, it absolutely has to be gender equal, simply because that is what drives innovation, explains Cindy. Disruption and innovation come as a result of a creative collision between different mindsets, perspectives, backgrounds and insights.

 

“Women are crucial to the future of work and business because there is a huge amount of money to be made out of taking women seriously. They’re a key part of redesigning the business of the future because you cannot drive new-world-order business from an old-world-order place.”

That new world order requires diversity across race, ethnicity, sexuality, disability and age, but gender cuts across all those things according to Cindy. Women are very good at challenging the status quo because they are never it.

“At the top of every industry is a closed loop of white guys talking to white guys about other white guys. And white guys, you will enormously benefit when you break that loop. Because if you start any business today with an all-male-white founding team you will never own the future, if you run any business today with an all-white-male leadership team, you will never own the future. If you want to be the business of the future and you want to make a shit-ton of money doing it, that future is gender-equal and diverse.”

And there are many white guys out there who couldn’t agree more. Journalist and trend forecaster James Wallman recently worked with Yell Business on a report looking at the future of gender equality, and says that although women have been shockingly underrepresented in business in government and in the media, we’re definitely headed towards a more female future,and that’s a very good thing for everybody.

Smart companies like Apple, Etsy, Slack are bringing women into the design and creation process
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We’re headed towards a more female future,and that’s a very good thing for everybody
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“Smart companies like Apple, Etsy, Slack are bringing women into the design and creation process and that’s creating better products, better services, for men, women, for all of us.”

He acknowledges that there are still significant numbers of men who see feminism as an antagonistic movement, perceiving it as a win-lose game between men and women.

 

“That’s nonsense,” says Wallman. “If women do better, men will benefit, and I think we’re going to see a movement emerging – which I call Masculism – that shows those men how equality is good for all of us.”

There are some interesting ways in which technology can help us get to that diverse and equal future too, and one of the most exciting ones is around Virtual Reality. In virtual worlds we’re able to play with different identities and even bypass the issue of gender altogether. Wallman points to the fact that we’ll see a greater variety of gender categories emerging, with people feeling comfortable defining themselves as Pangender, Agender or Polygender, for example.

At the top of every industry is a closed loop of white guys talking to white guys about other white guys
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As we conduct more of our personal and professional interactions in virtual worlds mediated by Avatars which we’re free to shape as we please, the possibilities for bypassing unconscious gender bias are tantalizing, says Wired’s Rowland Manthorpe:

“As we live more in virtual worlds — whether in AR or VR — it will be possible to deflect and undermine strict gender divisions. You might be a woman in the flesh but a man through the AR lens. In the future, our workplaces will be far less affected by our inbuilt biases, the people we hire and work with will be more diverse, and the results will be better because of it.”

Jim Reichert, a Senior Creative Technologist at Microsoft working on HoloLens Augmented Reality projects, is another white guy who passionately champions diversity. He tells me that this sort of gender transcendence is already prevalent evident in Second Life, the original virtual world created by Linden Lab over 13 years ago, and that this is also reflected in the fact that over 60% of creators in that environment are women, significantly higher than in other areas of tech.

“I’ve met so many amazing people in the Metaverse– really brilliant people– and I have no idea what their sex, ethnicity, or country-of-origin is. It’s pretty cool,” he says.

Linden Lab is now is now developing a VR version of this social open-world called Sansar, and when I recently demoed their closed Beta I had some clue that enabling this sort of flexibility is a key part of their design. I met Linden’s CEO Ebbe Altberg in the virtual world, and after a short while it didn’t’ really seem strange at all that his deep male voice was emanating from the lips of a female avatar, dressed in a bright green Godzilla suit. “I don’t even notice it any more,” he told me.

A more diverse workplace will be a much happier one, and that makes good business sense
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There’s a lot at stake here. A more diverse workplace will be a much happier one, and that makes good business sense, since happier people are much more productive, and A LOT more creative.

“As we move from materialism to experientialism, we’re going to look for happiness and identity in experiences rather than just stuff, and what’s going to matter is quality of life,” predicts Wallman.

It’s up to us to make it happen though, and grab life and business by the balls, so to speak. Cindy recommends everybody to take time to identify what their values are. What do you most love doing? And under what conditions do you most love doing it?

“Everything in life and business starts with your values. Design an opportunity, a job, a venture around those values, and it will never feel like work. When you do that you can make your own business model. I did with my venture Make Love Not Porn because I believe the business model of the future is shared value+shared actions=shared profit, both financial and social.”

And that sounds like something that would well and truly “make the world a better place” – a rare occasion when we can deliver the Silicon Valley punch line with a straight face.

The post Designing a Workplace Beyond Gender appeared first on Tech Trends.