Technology and innovation offer opportunities to inspire change and raise awareness of the importance of women in startups and software development companies and how their voices and perspectives can be part of the success of a new business. According to a study carried out by UNESCO, the lack of female participation can cause multi-million-dollar losses in the world economy. Reducing the gap may have a 4% positive GDP effect for Latin America.
Although participation continues to increase, women face many challenges. The report The Future of Technology: Female Inclusion carried out by the IDB Lab in conjunction with Laboratoria, a regional institution that promotes Latin American female talent within the digital economy, shows that companies with more than 40% of women in their teams have 21% more likely to be high performers compared to those with less than 5%, while those companies with a lower percentage of gender plurality show up to 33% more negative results than those with the most diversity.
“To increase the presence of women in the technology industry, its necessary to maintain an increasingly less stigmatized vision of social gender roles, in addition to reinforcing messages to get more young people interested in these professions by showing them positive role models and giving them the freedom to choose a path in the technological world,” said Andrea Fuenzalida, Business Developer Manager of Laboratoria.
Companies can be the perfect allies to promote equality since they have the opportunity and responsibility to meet this challenge with actions that favor the training of talent, the access and permanence of women in their technology teams, and leadership development to value inclusion and diversity from a deep commitment to becoming agents of change. Highlighting the successful approaches of these women leaders could offer a potential shift in the way we view core values that are usually attributed to gender differences, as this way, building bridges to inspire more young women to develop in the digital realm.
The time we live on has shown how imperative it is to keep up with the digital revolution. The more girls and adolescents have access to technology, the easier it will be to bridge the gaps. Having a gender-sensitive approach means going beyond recognizing and raising awareness of equity, ensuring that women’s and men’s concerns or experiences are equally integrated into the design of innovative products or services.
