University coddles you in those three years. You’re somewhat teased into thinking you won’t just become another boring statistic on the nation’s unemployed numbers.

No such luck.

After graduating, I found a tweet advertising free digital marketing classes with a fantastic job training start-up called Fluency. About 98.9% of the classes were made up of young women, something the team was hugely excited about (and quite rightly so).

Gender Gap

There remains a massive gender gap in the tech industry, an old boy’s club if you will. Its not that these businesses are unwelcoming to women - speaking from personal experience, male techies are coding-crazy and happy to help you out - it’s that they’re not aware how intimidating the world of tech can sometimes be for anyone who doesn’t fit the white, male industry norm.

One of Silicon Valley’s most famous venture capital firms claimed victory in a prominent gender discrimination case last week. The plaintiff, Ellen Pao, sued Kleiner Perkins, claiming that the company did not promote her to senior investing partner due to her gender.

The case struck an international chord amongst the tech and business communities, even more so when it emerged that Pao had lost. But actually, Pao brought to light the fact that old-school gender insensitivity is still alive and well in a powerful, influential industry.

Change for the Better

Disappointing news aside, in the UK we have an abundance of brilliant groups and initiatives which are heavily dedicated to furthering women’s’ careers in business - Girls Who Code, Ada’s List, Dreamers & Doers, and Addidi Business Angels are just a few.

I’m incredibly lucky to be surrounded by fantastic colleagues at SPARKL. But there is somewhat of a mystique surrounding tech that women, for whatever reason, don’t feel that they can understand.

It’s time to change that.

Photo courtesy of flipboard.com.