Women in tech: ‘Budget is real’
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times to be a woman in tech.
“I truly believe there is no better time for women in technology than today,” founder and CEO Margaret Zablocka tells DW, reflecting on when she founded the company Onoco, a popular parenting app, in 2020. The support network for women it’s already much better than it used to be, she said.
So how do you explain the results of a recent report from the Web Summit, the world’s biggest technology event? In a 2022 survey of women in the Web Summit tech community, 70% said they felt they needed to work harder to prove themselves in their roles because of their gender. This represented a 36% increase over 2019 figures.
The number of women in the tech startup scene is growing and is illuminating gender issues in the industry. About 20% of startups worldwide had at least one female founder in 2019, up from 10% in 2009, according to data from Crunchbase, which provides insights into startups. But even with a growing number of women in the game, just 2% of venture capital funding in Europe went to female-only startups in 2021 – less than a paltry 3% in 2020.
‘Investors don’t wait for a woman’
“Look, bias is real,” Rima Al-Shikh, founder of an artificial intelligence (AI) startup, said over a call from Canada, where she lives. “I’m not going to hide it. It’s not simple. It’s not like you tell people, ‘Hey, change it’ and they will change it,” she told DW.
Al-Shikh has been obsessed with computers and coding since she was a child in Syria, growing up in a family of scientists. After working as a technology consultant in the corporate world for several years, during the pandemic she founded Begin AI, an AI platform that allows companies to process customer data into a personalized user experience without the need to build an internal infrastructure. of AI.
Begin AI recently secured $1 million (€944,000) in funding, including from Sandpiper Ventures, a female-led Canadian investment fund to invest in women-led businesses. This is something that means a lot to Al-Shikh.
“People have [sexist stereotypes] deeply drilled into your brain,” she said. “In fundraising, it’s clear when I walk into a room, investors don’t expect to see a female technologist.”
Men feel the pressure
Zablocka says she has also experienced gender bias when raising funds for her London-based startup. The founder launched the parenting app, which allows you to track and plan your baby’s schedule according to developmental stages, after becoming a mother for the second time – and after spending ten years building digital products for the sports betting and financial industry.
“People quickly connect the dots and think, ‘Okay, she’s young. She’s a woman. She started a mobile phone company for her parents. That probably means she’s not tech savvy,'” she said.
Women in tech are much more visible today, she says. Interestingly, this could be one of the reasons more women are feeling pressured to prove they belong.
“There has perhaps been a growing frustration among tech men that the importance of diversity and inclusion is a topic that is being discussed even more openly,” she said, adding, “And I think some people might think there’s some injustice in that. . .”
Tighter market means more competition
It’s a frustrating time for the tech industry, whatever your gender. After more than a decade of what appeared to be unstoppable growth, higher interest rates and tougher economic conditions have hit tech finance hard. The US high tech NASDAQ stock index lost $7.4 trillion between November 2021 and November 2022.
Investors are evaluating companies more carefully before buying them. Before, when money flowed freely, they often chose companies that had little or no business case, Al-Shikh noted, relying on what they considered “instinct”.
“So you think this is a great person [to invest in] why?” she said. “Maybe because they speak your accent. They share your color. They speak your language.”
With fewer resources to allocate, women in the tech space can feel like a target for their peers’ frustration. Zablocka recently attended an artificial intelligence conference in London, where one of the expert panels was all women. From her seat in the audience, she could hear voices behind her saying that the speakers were likely selected because of their gender.
“After hearing what these women had to say, I think they were probably embarrassed [for thinking that]”, she said. “Because the panelists were very knowledgeable.”
Startups are still great places for women
Focusing less on your gender and letting the quality of your work speak for itself is one way to help support women in tech, say the two CEOs.
“Yes, I am a founder, but I would also like to be treated simply as a founder,” said Zablocka. “I prefer that we focus on the male world and what we can do to help men understand it better.”
For her, that means improving parental leave policies so that women are no longer the default mothers. Making it easy for parents to share their tasks is one of the main goals of his company’s app.
Tech is still a big space for women, both founders agree, particularly in the startup scene, where female founders have a lot of flexibility to embed their values in the organization, more so than in the corporate world.
“In my experience, most people, given the chance to do the right thing and the awareness of what the right thing is, will do it,” Al-Shikh said. “I feel like startups are better positioned to create deeper change for sure.”
Source: DW
Lori Barajas is an accomplished journalist, known for her insightful and thought-provoking writing on economy. She currently works as a writer at 247 news reel. With a passion for understanding the economy, Lori’s writing delves deep into the financial issues that matter most, providing readers with a unique perspective on current events.