WOMEN IN TECH

IN THE DIGITAL ERA, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) jobs are expected to grow exponentially in the near future. While it's already challenging to fill in the positions with qualified individuals, attracting women's talents to the industry is even more challenging. According to the non-profit organization American Association of University Women (AAUW), women in the US make up only 28% of the workforce STEM, and men vastly outnumber women majoring in most STEM fields in college. The gender gaps are exceptionally high in some of the fastest-growing and highest-paid jobs of the future, like computer science and engineering.

In Indonesia, research by consumer aggregator company iPrice in 2018 showed that women's representation in Indonesia's fast-growing e-commerce industry is only 31% compared to males' 69%. Although the figure seems better than the US figure, the research doesn't elaborate on the gap in high-ranking and decision-making positions, which are likely to have even fewer women's representation.

AAUW also identified some key factors perpetuating the gender gap in STEM, such as gender stereotypes, male-dominated culture, fewer role models, math anxiety, and confidence gap. To bring more awareness about the problem and find a solution, Forbes Indonesia held the Women in Tech discussion on 13 January. We bring in women leaders in Indonesia's tech industry: Tessa Wijaya, co-founder and COO of Xendit, Ken Ratri Iswari, founder and CEO of Geekhunter, and Anbita Nadine Siregar, founder of Generation Girl, to share their thoughts. Here is the edited excerpt of the discussion:

How does women's involvement in tech look like nowadays?

Tessa: Speaking from Xendit's experience, women's involvement has always significant to our operation. More than half of our operation crews are women—today we have more than 100 employees. These talents are young, fresh graduates in their 20's. However, a lot of them left the industry to build their family and so on. The tendency doesn't only happen in the tech industry. Thus, I believe the first thing that we have to solve is how we can support our women workforce in their working environment because having a family and children is also a full-time job.