The future of technology is female
We encourage young women entering the workforce by supporting their entrepreneurial projects in the technology sector.
WIT – Women in Technology
- Students trained
- Schools involved
- Business ideas presented by the students
- Training hours provided
Dove Lazio, Campania, Calabria, Sicily
2017/2019
Concluded
In collaboration with: Fondazione Mondo Digitale
THE CHALLENGE: the gender gap begins in the schoolroom
For those unfamiliar with the acronym, STEM stands for: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, all disciplines reputed to be increasingly important in business development and, by extension, most relevant to the job market.
A relationship between women and STEM is yet to be thought up: in fact, this field of studies remains predominantly male-dominated. One of the most common biases is that women are not adept at science. Yet nothing could be further from the truth: during the course of their primary education, girls demonstrate a clear passion for STEM, an interest that wanes over time, probably due to lack of support and because of gender stereotypes, societal and parental expectations, and the kind of role models we still tend to follow.
If we consider the changes underway, the high-tech advances and the role certain innovations play in our lives, one can easily see how this trend must be reversed through targeted campaigns, to avert a risk of disparity quickly sliding into the socio-economic sphere.
THE GOAL: to promote inclusion and equality for women in IT and technology
WIT – Women in Technology aims to bring generations of young women closer to training programmes and careers in technical disciplines by promoting their access to the job market and developing their skills in micro-enterprises.
The aim is to train 210 third- and fourth-year students from technical institutions in Southern Italy’s urban areas with high unemployment rates, to promote the development of young female entrepreneurs.
OUR PROJECT: to strengthen the pairing of women and STEM with exclusive opportunities for women
The WIT – Women in Technology project builds on the challenges of the new digital and technological economy and the underuse of women in it, by training and supporting the entrepreneurial ideas of 210 female students from three high schools in Lazio, Campania, Calabria and Sicily in the new technologies sector.
The project included an initial training phase in which the latest technological advances and new organisational models were presented to the teachers, while simultaneously supporting the students with issues such as personal development, confidence and appreciating one’s talents.
The training programme aimed at female students focussed on professional and technical skills, to spur the development of soft skills in the participants and help them problem-solve.
The young women, supported in developing their own entrepreneurial projects in the technical sector, were subsequently invited to apply their learnings in developing a micro-enterprise project in social innovation.
The best ideas selected lead to 41 different projects being submitted to businesses and institutions amongst the network of the project partner Fondazione Mondo Digitale, with the aim of seeking financial backers, and thus establishing an initial, crucial contact for future job opportunities in more skilled and employable professions in the coming years.
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