Women workforce must definitely be increased, and women entrepreneurs are taking a giant leap towards it. Talking to Express Computer’s Gairika Mitra, Anupama Raman, Global Head, Software Academy, Continental Technical Center Bangalore, talks about how this may be achieved.
Edited excerpts:
Why do you think so fewer women in the tech space, or in the field of entrepreneurship, for that matter?
There is a significant population of women in tech space doing junior roles between the age group of 22- 30. However, there is a drastic dip in the count of women who occupy mid and senior management roles. This is predominantly due to several factors like marriage, relocation after marriage and child birth, to name top few reasons. As per a study (by the World Bank in collaboration with the National Sample Survey Organization published in the leading newspaper), 20 million Indian women quit jobs between 2004-12. Around 65-70% of women who quit never returned to work at all. The count of women who occupy senior leadership positions in technology areas is comparatively low.
How do you train or upskill individuals in the area of Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Security in your firm?
We use several techniques to train and upskill individuals in areas of AI and Cyber security. Some of them are :
1) Dedicated learning path for acquiring skills at various levels like Beginner, Intermediate and advanced
2) Hands on practice sessions with real time data in order to foster application of knowledge gained from trainings
3) Sponsor individuals to attend leading national and international conferences in these areas so that they are aware of the latest advancements in these topics
4) Provide stretch assignment and job rotation opportunities which will help in developing the skills further
What are the newer forms of technology that you are looking forward to adopting in the near future? Kindly give us reasons too.
Some of the areas of technology which we are looking forward to, for immediate future adoption are, Technologies which support high-performance computing. Number of lines of code in the automotive world is increasing drastically. This increase needs to be supported by technologies that enable high-performance computing like CUDA and Adaptive AUTOSAR.
Artificial intelligence(AI) : Automotive domain is increasingly seeing more use cases of AI especially in areas of user experience and safety. This has made AI as one of the most important technology focus areas.
Lastly, what would you suggest is the best way to get more women in the tech space?
.Companies in tech space are consciously launching initiatives to recruit more women. Some of them involve earmarking certain positions only for women candidates, providing fast track career option for woman employees, special grooming and mentoring program for women. In addition to this, there are a lot of other options like flexible work timings, in house creche facilities, which are offered by many tech organizations in order to hire and retain women talent and also support them in times of need like maternity and post child birth with dedicated help lines and other support systems. This will offer emotional support which is much needed for women to sustain and balance their career and personal life.
At Continental, for example, we have a global target to increase women in leadership positions to 25 percent by 2025. We also have special initiatives for women right from the start of their career. One such program is Continental Women@Work. Through our Women@Work initiative, women early in their career can connect with senior executives as well as a global network of women from every area in the company. In India, we run WE-LEAD, a customized development program for grooming women leaders. The program supports mid-career women to pursue their personal and professional aspirations with confidence and develop business and leadership skills. The 7-month program includes comprehensive development of mid-career women through interventions such as individual assessments, workshops, webinars, coaching and action learning.
Over and above all this, if the company is rooted on strong core values, you are already limiting the possibility of discrimination in any manner. A comprehensive code of conduct in business, well-established policies, training programs, awareness programs, etc. are all aimed at removing any conscious and unconscious biases that may exist in us.
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