International Women’s Day Insight: The World of Technology Needs More Women

International Women’s Day (IWD) always raises conflicting feelings for me - a sense of celebration mixed with overwhelm at the amount of work still needed to create true gender equity in our world.

UN Women’s 2022 Gender Snapshot Report estimates that it will take 286 years to close gaps in legal protection and remove discriminatory laws. Combine this with women doing 2.5 times more unpaid work than men and a 36 year increase in the time to close the gender pay gap since pre-Covid (now 136 years according to the The World Economic Forum) and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. TIME provides reems of evidence to show why gender equity is much more than a women’s issue: it impacts decisions about the home, our work, politics and even about war.

UN Women has chosen to focus on the role of digital skills to raise the bar for women globally. When I fell into the technology industry 15 years ago, I had no idea how passionate I would become about the transformation technology can drive in our everyday lives and the criticality of gender representation to make this transformation beneficial to all. At Hitachi Vantara, we firmly believe in the power of technology to contribute to society and protect our planet for future generations. To achieve these goals, we must incorporate the thoughts, views and needs of 50% of our world’s population.

We have made progress in the last 12 months with improved family-friendly policies, new healthcare benefits, options for flexible working, new communities providing safe spaces, new leave policies, increased education, expansion of mental health support and investments to bring diverse talent into Hitachi Vantara. And there’s still plenty more to do.

This year, we’ll be marking IWD and Women’s History Month in person in 18 countries and virtually across the globe using the theme “*.WOMEN. Defy categories. Be a wildcard”. The wildcard symbol is a search term that unboxes criteria and spotlights how Hitachi Vantara empowers all of us to level the fields for women to gain their share in the world of technology.

As part of our ongoing commitment to gender diversity and increasing our representation to 30% female by 2025, we’re also:

• Launching a pilot leadership program to raise the voices of high-potential women through a transformational TED-style speaking course with Ginger Leadership Communications called Amplify, culminating in a range of ‘Ideas Worth Amplifying.’
• Running workshops and e-learning with Catalyst on Men Advocating for Real Change, to inspire and equip men to leverage their unique opportunity to be advocates for change and raise awareness of bias and how to tackle it.
• Co-creating an allyship program with Token Man Consulting and Potentia Talent Consulting, led by our Women of Hitachi employee resource group (ERG), with input from our Rainbow Connection (LGBTQ+) ERG to include an intersectional lens on gender.
• Providing career development opportunities to our ERG leaders / members through a mix of internal discussion and externally facilitated training.
• Investing in programming for girls studying STEM through our partnership with Visit.org.

I am 100% committed to encouraging more women to enter the incredible industry I fell into, and in love with, 15 years ago. We need more women to make an intentional choice about a career in technology, through technical and non-technical paths, rather than leaving it to chance. We need more gender diversity to design better solutions to the world’s largest challenges, to create economic independence for more women, to close the gender pay gap, to break harmful stereotypes for people of all genders and to ensure that everyone has the digital skills and technology access needed to provide for their families.

Technology has the power to transform our lives; let’s make sure it’s transformational for all.

See how the women of Hitachi Vantara are inspiring the future.