Women in Tech
By Limana Solaiman Mridha
Womens participation in Bangladeshs expanding ICT sector is still very low, compared to that of other countries, speakers told a conference in the city recently.
Experts in the field, particularly successful women in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry, got together to identify and discuss the reasons behind this lack of participation at the Tech Women Conference, which took place on February 1 as part of BASIS SOFTEXPO 2017 at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in Dhaka.
Munir Hasan, joint secretary of Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN), opened the discussion through a presentation that showed successful women in the tech industry all over the world, and then went on to show Bangladeshi women working at Facebook, Microsoft, Google, etc.
Hasan then raised the question as to why more women should get involved in the ICT sector: Our productivity is stuck at 6.7 per cent because we are failing to incorporate more women in this sector. There is no father of the internet, but there is a mother of internet, people would not have been able to go to the moon if Margarita Hamilton did not do the calculations in the background. At present, 90 universities in Bangladesh offer computer science, engineering and ICT degrees, and there are 38,000 students, but only 9,500 of them are women. Less than 1 per cent of these female graduates are interested to have a career in the ICT industry. There are no women in Bangladeshs math, physics, informatics Olympiad team, zero participation of women in the programming team, although we stand at the top in programming from South Asia. Our women are missing from everywhere, and this needs to change.
He then talked about an initiative called Missing Daughter, which aimed to encourage more women to join the ICT sector. Many camps were conducted all around the country, while meetings and a programming contest for girls were held. Another event, called Girls in ICT, was organised where many young women were taken to different companies to show what kind of work and activities are available in the sector.
Lafifa Jamal, head of Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering, Dhaka University, talked about the mind-set of our society and said that we are responsible for this drawback.
I was a student of the first batch of DUs Computer Science and Engineering Department and the only woman among 20 men. Surprisingly, even after 20 plus years, the 21st batch had 60 men and three women, which shows that the ratio still remains about the same even after all these years. The reason behind this is our mind-set. We think some jobs are not for women. We want our female doctors to specialise in gynaecology, and sometimes hesitate to see a woman in other specialties. When we buy toys for children, we buy dolls and pots and pans for our daughters, and guns and cars for the boys. We are the ones creating gaps among men and women. At a computer science seminar that I attended recently, a woman from the audience got up to ask whether it is possible to manage time for this kind of work. I believe that is possible. You have to be efficient in time management and you can also use the online platform to work in this sector. It is up to us to change the perception of our next generation, Jamal said.
Another participant, Maliha Nargis, additional director general of the governments ICT Department, said: Sometimes I wish I had studied ICT and done something by myself, instead of doing a government job. Recently, I attended a development fair and during the prize-giving ceremony I asked a girl what she wanted to be and she replied, I want to be a software engineer. I really appreciated her enthusiasm and took a second look at her. Youths nowadays have so many opportunities and online platforms can be used by both men and women to work in this sector. We are such a society that women are still scared to go out after dark, as we have failed to provide the security they need. But even if it is one oclock at night, only in this area of work you can work from home and earn money, so you dont even have to worry about stepping out of the house. Women of our country need to adapt professionalism. We all have families and children, but you also have to learn to be committed to your work and do the part that is expected of you. Hard work is the key.
Farhana A Rahman, vice president of BASIS (Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services), moderated the conference. Hosne Ara Begum, managing director of Bangladesh Hi Tech Park, Mehnaz Kabir, chief communications officer at Ranks Telecom Ltd, Nazneen Sultana, managing director of Grameen Communications, and entrepreneur Rokia Afzal Rahman were also present at the event.
Photos: Courtesy
