A group of women information technology professionals are attempting to create a ‘Women in Tech’ community that will meet regularly to discuss, among other things, the challenges faced by women in taking up and sustaining a career in technology.
The first meeting of the strictly women-only group is being organised this Saturday at Startup Centre, a start-up accelerator at Valmiki Nagar, Thiruvanmiyur.
Ashwini Asokan, coordinator of the group and an entrepreneur herself, said the inspiration to start the group came when she tried recruiting people for her company.
“There are an equal number of women graduates as men passing out of engineering colleges every year,” she said. “But if you look at the number of women who are able to sustain their careers, the number falls dramatically. Marriage or childbirth leads to a break in their career, and there is no support system to bring them back,” she said.
The group aims to keep its objectives broad and evolve as they go along. Ashwini and her team hope the group’s meet-ups happen with regularity similar to other already active communities like the ‘Open Coffee Club,’ a community that strives to bring together entrepreneurs, developers and investors.
A recent study of women in 75 IT firms found the main complaints were about inflexible demands regarding working hours, insufficient support for flexible schedules and personal responsibilities, and incompatible career-building and family-building cycles.
Lack of flexible timings, support for maternity and new mothers are practically non-existent in Indian companies.
For more details, email ashwini@madstreetden.com. Details on Startup Centre at www.thestartupcentre.com.
