Women’s role in tech sector changing — CWIT

Attitudes towards women in technology are changing rapidly and female participation continues to increase in this sector in Ireland, a briefing heard today.

The Connecting Women in Technology (CWIT) breakfast briefing took place at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, involving more than 200 women working in the technology sector.

Set up in 2009, CWIT is a collaborative initiative of senior women from Ernst & Young, HP, Microsoft, Accenture, Google, Facebook, Dell and IBM which aims to attract more women to the sector.

Marie Treacy, partner at Ernst & Young hosted the event and guest speakers included Triona Campbell, beActive International and Regina Moran, Fijitsu Ireland.

“The recent establishment by Enterprise Ireland of a €250K Competitive Feasibility Fund is to be welcomed and will help women investigate the viability of new growth,” Treacy said.

“However, more needs to be done through education, policy and collaboration to boost the number of innovative, export-oriented business being set up by female entrepreneurs.”

“This event was designed to harness female entrepreneur and intrapreneurship, by bringing together Ireland’s technology female leaders.”

In looking to identify measures that have been successful in encouraging women to become entrepreneurs, it would be interesting to study developments in countries such as US and Australia that have stated objectives to increase the level of entrepreneurial activity among women, she added.

“The presence of powerful women in tech fields, such as Regina, Triona, Yahoos Marissa Mayer and Facebooks, Meg Whitman, but to name a few could signal the demise of the industry’s historically exclusionary culture and encourage more women to become leaders in technology and influence entrepreneurial ideas.”