Women Talk Tech. Everywhere.

Have you ever sat in a room and could count the number of women present with one hand? Have you ever wondered why your voice is usually the minority in the room?

Well, I don’t know about you but we certainly have. And so have our friends, and their friends and their friends’ friends. It seems to have happened to all of us at one point in time or several times even.

We are aware of the existence of quotas, and diversity initiatives, and networks trying to bring more women into the spotlight. Yet, progress is slow and during panel discussions and workshops I still get asked ‘how do you find all these women?’ as if they’re a rare gem that you need to look for at the ends of the world.

No, women make half of the world’s population and it doesn’t take long to find inspiring, transformative, groundbreaking women who challenge their environments and succeed in their respective fields. And that’s what we aspire to do here as well. Proving to the world that there are more than enough qualified women out there, that can share their expertise and their journeys, their learnings and failures.

But when we say there are more than enough women out there that should be spotlighted, we do just not mean the “token” women – the few women who’ve already been on every panel out there. Don’t get us wrong. We do not mean any disrespect to them; we admire them and are grateful to them for paving the way for the rest of us. For fighting their way through an unbalanced system and making it to the top. Yet, it seems that society has become complacent and comfortable with giving these few women a chance, patting themselves on the back for including them in their panels and opinion pieces and so on.

“But when we say there are more than enough women out there that should be spotlighted, we do just not mean the “token” women – the few women who’ve already been on every panel out there. Don’t get us wrong. We do not mean any disrespect to them; we admire them and are grateful to them for paving the way for the rest of us.”

This has led to multiple studies and articles saying that progress has stalled or even gone backwards. The World Economic Forum has stated that it may take another 202 years to close the gender pay gap. This would would mean, that maybe my great granddaughters might live to experience pay equality. Well, that is not good enough… we want to see more women out there, especially more diversity in tech. And by diversity, we don’t just mean white women. We mean everybody who identifies with being a woman in every corner of the world. Whether in Greece, Hong Kong, Australia or Ghana.

However, building this platform and spotlighting transformative stories, we do not want to become just another blog in competition with the plethora of platforms and networks out there. We wish to add to the discussion and the networks; build upon them and become another connector that brings these platforms and groups of impressive women together. Because at the end of the day, we do not wish to be called “women in tech” anymore – as if we’re a sub-group that requires special attention. Women talk tech everywhere and we just want to be seen as people in tech like everybody else.

We will be publishing commentaries and interviews with inspiring women. Women who work in tech, who founded a tech company or who simply use technology in their work environment. We promise to keep it short, sweet and relevant. Stay tuned.