Consisting of corporates, non-governmental organisations and educational institutions, the Women in Technology (WiT) forum is clearly diverse, and seems well-equipped to encourage and enable women to pursue careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) fields.
The forum, initiated by RBS, completed a year recently, and it has many new programmes on the drawing board, including career fairs for women seeking to return after a career break and speed-mentoring fairs.
WiT, launched in March 2018, tries to ensure greater participation of women in STEM fields through four strategies: one, intervention at the school and college level; two, offering scholarships to girls to take up higher studies; three, mentoring; and four, by bringing women back to the industry.
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Early intervention, at the school level, is important.
According to Mastercard STEM Research 2018, 93% of the girls in the 12 to 14 years age group who were surveyed in India, said they were were drawn to STEM-related careers. However, 38% of them believed they were ‘less likely’ to take up a career in science and technology because the industry was ‘male-dominated’.
According to NASSCOM report, only 26% of the engineering roles in the Indian technology industry were taken up by women. Nearly 50% women engineers quit the industry due to various reasons; and only 7% of women engineers reached the C-suite.
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Anuranjita Kumar, HR Head of RBS International Hubs, says WiT is a collaborative effort by different companies, and those participating in the initiative borrow resources and ideas, a factor likely to contribute to its success.
Corporates that are part of WiT include IBM, Amazon, Sapient, Deloitte, Volvo, JC Penny, ANZ, Uber and TCS and from the world of academia, there are: Indian Institute of Technology and Ashoka University. The NGOs that are promoting the initiative include Literacy India, Avtar and Timeless Life Skills Foundation.
City-based chapters
“When we started we said we would reach one lakh touch points, in terms of educating, mentoring or funding, in one year. Today, we have reached out to over two lakh women/girls,” says Anuranjita. Companies spearhead this initiative in the cities that they are present in. IBM leads the Bengaluru chapter; Mastercard the Pune chapter; and Amazon heads Tamil Nadu and Hyderabad chapters.
“Each of the chapters designs its own programmes and activities, but in alignment with the key objectives of the forum,” says Anuranjita.
The forum wants more corporate houses to partner with them. “We want businesses from tier II cities join us in this effort,” she says.
“We are working towards ensuring that at least 20,000 women make a comeback to the industry in the next three years. At the managerial and leadership level, we want to ensure that at least double the number of women now take up roles there,” says Anuranjita.