Women in the Indian IT alley

Women have been involved in computers since computers were first envisioned. They are present in all facets of computing and information technology. Despite this, their presence is comparatively small in these fields and gradually let to the omission or downplay of women’s roles in computer science history. Women are crucial agents of social change. Technology and social change are closely interlinked. Every society goes through a social change with the introduction of a new technology. For women to participate fully in this change, they should not be intimidated by technology.

Global concerns about current and future roles of women in computing occupations gained more importance with the emerging information age. Many organization have come up to enhance women’s awareness, interest and participation in technology, this is done to create a general awareness amongst both men and women on the particular need for women to participate equally in technology; encourage women to take initiative in learning, using and making technology.

In India, the case is just the opposite to that in the western countries. There is a great demand for computer science. Since the IT industry has been responsible for large-scale employment, there is a higher rate of women taking up education and careers in engineering, especially computer engineering. Parents also significantly affect choices as they overwhelmingly promote a career in computer engineering. Even though, competition is extremely tough, the number of women in IT industry has increased drastically. Computer engineering is a relatively clean field in the sense that it does not involve careers in factories. Most careers are in programming, which can be easily done from home too. Talking about working from home, I would take it as my pride privilege to talk about the company am presently working, Injoos. As, the company is entirely based on “Cloud computing”, the new way to work is introduced. It’s not always required for us to be in office, login through various sectors to do our job; we have flexibility in place. All we got to do is log into the cloud and continue doing our job from anywhere, be it home or office, job is done. The women co-workers in the company find it just easy to work in such a flexible environment. As in a country like India with too much of family bonds, women find it difficult in travelling long distances to reach their work place. It would be a great concern if huge enterprises encourage such working conditions which would in turn pull in a large number of women with high potentials.

Technology is a great determinant of a society’s materialistic development and in turn influences the standard of life hugely. The wheels of evolving technology are never going to stay still; so it is up to women to catch up with it.

Some Interesting links:

ACM Committee on Women in Computing

SIG Proceedings on Women in Computing

Association of Women in Computing

Apple has no women at the top