International Women’s Day: every woman should be able to take control of her life - Main contents
Today is International Women’s Day.
I think every woman should have the tools and skills she needs to take control of her own life. Not to be trapped by social expectations, financial dependence or a lack of the right skills.
There’s no doubt for me that ICT is a powerful tool here. Not only is it the key to tomorrow’s labour market, with ICT skills in strong demand. But it can also help achieve your life goals, whatever they are.
From the confidence to use an online forum to find out about family health problems - to the web design skills that can turn that hobby into a viable business: ICT can help you for every kind of profession and for every kind of life ambition. And improve your salary prospects too: today the gender pay gap is equivalent to women working 59 days a year for free: and ICT is one way to catch up, as women in the ICT sector earn an average of 9% more than women in similar positions in other sectors.
So it’s disappointing that women aren’t keeping up. Yet less than 30% of the ICT workforce are women! We should be doing everything we can to change that, and to encourage more women to access those opportunities. It’s not just good for equal rights - it’s essential to our competitiveness.
I’ve been inspired this week by easy tools to improve Europe’s ICT skills. I’ve seen great ideas launched as a result of our Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs: like the simple but incredibly effective Academy Cube, to tell people what jobs they’re eligible for - and what they could become eligible for with the right training.
Now I’m on the lookout for similar bright ideas and innovations that can support getting more women into ICT.
I know there are many worthy initiatives out there. From the great Rails Girls initiative by Finnish Digital Champion Linda Liukas; to the “Lean In Foundation” set up by Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg.
But I’m open to novel ideas for effective solutions, and I want to know what you think. Maybe you work in this field, would like to work in this field, or are trying to encourage others to work in this field. If so, I want to know your views: why are girls and women more likely to ignore the opportunity of ICT jobs? What would turn them on to it? What kind of initiatives work to change those attitudes - and what doesn’t?
On the 25th April I’ll be going to the European Parliament, to talk on Girls in ICT Day. I hope by then I’ll have lots of fresh ideas that I can take to those decision-makers. So make sure you send me those ideas: on our dedicated LinkedIn discussion (http://linkd.in/euwomen), or on Twitter with the hashtag #girlsdigital, or check out the Facebook page.