The shortage of women in tech

My job is simple. I spend hours upon hours searching for the most innovative, forward thinking profiles in tech. I wouldn’t say I stalk these people, per se, but let’s just say I do plenty of research. This time and effort must occur because, in the end, I will ask these individuals to share their expertise and knowledge as a conference speaker at With the Best. Topics range from AI, IoT, VR, AR, Unity, Blockchain, Swift, etc. Pretty diverse technically speaking. So it’s extremely important that I search for the best and brightest who are willing to not only showcase their work, but also present their research and demonstrate the applicability of their technology.

I’ve been doing this for the last two years, and what I have noticed — and what I probably already knew, but didn’t want to admit — is that we have an extreme shortage of women in the science fields. But the situation is more complex than just that, and I will try my best to break down exactly what I’ve found.

The percentage is simply low. If you do a Google search for the female-male ratio in the sciences, you might be surprised at how few articles you find on the first page. Then articles related to other topics start coming up. Reports show that women make up only somewhere between 10% and 30% of the demographic. This of course depends on the field in which a person is specialized, their level of seniority, or simply if they are technical/non-technical. Even if we take the best-case percentage, 30%, we are still 20% shorter than where we should be, if we truly want an even playing field. From that 30% you subtract all non-technical women (HR, project managers, CMOs, etc) and we find ourselves with a very low percentage of women that are technically qualified.

So, when I actually do reach out to these bad-ass women, there are a few different types of responses I get.

The happy-sad rejection. This happens all the time. I invite tech women to speak, and I am swiftly rejected. This is a happy-sad rejection, and I completely understand it. The happy part comes with the knowledge that they are busy building, speaking at other events, researching or simply figuring out the next stage of their career. Rejections that come with “next time,” “not now,” “too busy,” “in the middle of a project/change/launch,” or “not my thing” are only indicators that these women are doing their part, thriving and bettering themselves, therefore implicitly bettering our society.

The sad part comes with rejections that incorporate (and every single one of these responses are real, by the way) “I don’t think it’s my place,” “I can recommend a male co-worker,” or “I don’t think I have something to say.” This is what really breaks my heart, because it’s simply not true. I invited you because I have done my research, looked around, checked your projects, your trajectory and your online presence. I know you are good at what you are doing and I asked you to share your knowledge because I know you are as competent as it gets, and just as good as your male co-workers. In fact, at the end of the day you might have even been recommended by some of them. Furthermore, I cater to technical attendees, professionals in the field, who would shred me apart if I only invited speakers based on their gender, and not on their value or competence. So, please trust your skills as much as I do.

Male colleagues. I have come across 3 types of male co-workers of women in tech. Let’s call the first group “Recognizers.” They are the ones that respect, admire and push their female counterparts. These ones email me with name recommendations. These ones praise the work of their female co-workers out into the world. These ones work closely with any female, and they encourage their growth. It’s really a pleasure to see the Recognizers so invested and so aware of the shortage of women in tech.

The second type of male co-workers I like to call “Ghosters.” Quite frankly, they are the ones that simply choose to ignore the work of their female co-workers, that choose to be actively passive, to do nothing, to stay in the shadows.

The third, and honestly, the most annoying are a group I like to call the “Move-over’s.” These ones are a real “blast” to see and work with. Move-over’s will basically choose only to promote themselves, will push aside their female counterparts, or simply volunteer to present their own work instead of any female co-worker that I suggest. And believe me, this actually happens quite a bit. I won’t talk too much about “Move-over’s” simply because they are hostile towards other males too. But, the good news is that “Recognizers” are becoming more vocal, and making the industry a better place, one co-worker at the time.

Amazingness of work. Why do I personally like to work with women? Not that I do not enjoy working with male individuals in tech, but it’s the women in tech who are performing with a chip on their shoulders, who have something to prove. The ease in which these women work (which for me looks crazy hard) brings out levels of intelligence, persistence, and the ability to break through any glass ceiling. Sometimes, I see how surprised they are for being considered so highly. Sometimes they already know. And sometimes I see they feel the pressure to stay relevant, to create new and fresh content, in this ever-changing industry.

Diversity & Inclusion. The fact that we need more diversity is not news; we need inclusion and we need to close the gender gap. I will always advocate for this. But there are also other elements of this issue that we need to consider. First, there are people out there advocating gender or race diversity just for the sake of it. No, this is not cool! We don’t just need more women in tech, we need more women in tech who are given the proper training, and the tools to succeed. Yes, the science field is primordial male, but even among male individuals in tech, we lack diversity. Then, once you look at the demographics of women in tech, you are lucky to find them at all (even if they are as white as me). We need not only gender diversity, but also race diversity among females in tech. Maybe we can do better (myself included) to offer that first hand towards a path in science to every little girl. This may be the best solution we have.

Let me break it down in simple math, and from my own experience. I do not choose not to invite females, and I do not choose not to invite non-white females. Believe me, as an organizer I get pressured to and it is frustrating to hear critics tell me this. First, I am also a women in tech. I might not build robots, code or do research, but sometimes I know more than other males on particular topics just because I care and I get exposed to things. Ok, now let’s look at that basic math. In this article from Digital Trends we see a report from 2013 that specifies that only 26% of people working in AI are female. Even more shockingly, if you take a look at the graphs from a 2017 Tech Emerges article about women in ML and AI you can see that the percentage of C — level females is 13.3%, so out of 156 CEO’s only 20 are female. For CTO’s it’s even lower at 9.6%, which means that out of 95 people only 9 are female.

Now let’s break down my work with the AI With The Best conference. I was in search of 100 technical speakers. So let’s say that I invited 100 people.

1. If 26% of them are female that offers me 26 women to contact

2. From these 26, 10 are well known, aka they are very busy and must decline

3. From these remaining 16 women, 7 did not respond to my email

4. That leaves me with 9 possibilities from which 3 were simply not interested

5. So here I am with only 6 women that might present…

Therefore, I will end up with 94 men and 6 women, not by choice but by default. We do have a shortage of women in tech, and if you don’t see more representation at tech events, this is simply because there are not enough women to begin with.

Again, we need to do better, to promote, to inspire, to encourage women in the sciences.

To conclude this article, I want to say thank you to the “Recognizers” for acknowledging the problem and trying to do something. As for the badass women — congratulations for working hard, and for all you give back to the community, as well as for being present. Thank you for your research and keep on doing it! We see you! We do! We appreciate you! We admire all your work and we see your value! Continue with your awesomeness!