Women talk Tech
The first in a series of events on empowering women to get into the tech industry took place in east London this week, organised between Birkbeck and Girls in Tech.
The first in a series of events on empowering women to get into the tech industry – Women talk Tech – How I transformed my career – took place in east London this week, organised between Birkbeck and Girls in Tech.
Organised by Birkbeck’s Careers & Employability service and taking place at We Work Spitalfields, a co-working space which is host to a range of start-ups in the sector, the event saw a panel of Birkbeck alumni working at the forefront of tech share their advice on breaking into the industry and share their advice on how the assembled audience of over 100 could equip themselves to do the same.
Moderated by Emem Rita Usanga – a digital media specialist and co-founder of Invest Well, which helps projects in Sub-Saharan Africa attract investment from institutional investors globally – the panel included:
- Dr Harveen Chugh, Growth Manager for the government’s Sirius international graduate entrepreneurship programme
- Sinead Mac Manus, CEO and founder of Fluency.io, an online learning platform for acquiring skills in social media, search engine optimisation and digital marketing
- Nathalie Richards – Founder and CEO of Edukit, an award-winning social enterprise helping schools by connecting them with youth service providers who can help raise student attainment
In a wide-ranging debate lasting the evening, the panel agreed that building a network by taking advantage of numerous events taking place in London, keeping an open mind and not being afraid to take risks and challenge perceptions are vital to making a successful transition into the sector.
The panel was passionate about not conflating gender with professional success, with a case was made that an unconscious bias against women in technology still persists making women backing women early in their careers vital.
“Birkbeck is renown, rightly so, as a place where people come to transform their lives, often by changing career,” says Elena Georgalla, Work Readiness Programme Officer at Birkbeck. “We set this up as we felt there’s a lack of fora to talk about the challenges women face in changing their career, especially in tech.”
The event was organised as part of Birkbeck’s Careers & Employability service’s Work Readiness programme, a collaboration with J.P. Morgan to enhance employability in health and social care and tech, especially for women.
“Our aim for the programme is to create opportunities for women, to expose them to role models who have already made the leap into tech,” Elena went on. “As our panel demonstrated, you don’t have to be technical to start a business and lead it to thrive in tech: there are so many ways you can achieve in the sector.”
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