We are all responsible for getting more girls and women into tech, guest post by CodeClan CEO Loral Quinn

The other day, my daughter, now 27, was clearing out some of her old My Scene dolls, fashion dolls that were all the rage twenty odd years’ ago.  It got me thinking, what if she had been given one of the seven Barbie dolls designed by Mattel to celebrate International Women’s Day to encourage more girls to see themselves in STEM.  Would she have chosen a career in tech?  Could this inspire other girls?  And could this help close the enormous gender gap in tech? 

Seeing is believing - and access to successful female role models in STEM is essential for children to build and maintain an interest in the industry.  Women make up less than one-third of the STEM workforce, and it’s proven that girls are systematically tracked away from STEM throughout their education. 

A recent Harvard study found that 61 per cent of parents reported the pandemic had negatively impacted their child’s social-emotional development.  So, discovering doll play can positively impact children may be particularly beneficial at this delicate time.

The latest research found children talked more about others’ thoughts and emotions, a concept known as internal state language, when playing with dolls than while playing tablet games.  Speaking about their internal states allows children to practice social skills when interacting with people in the real world, and benefits their overall emotional development. 

According to the recently published Stewart Report, the root of under-participation in entrepreneurship is a continuous process of role stereotyping within our society, embedding sexism with prejudices transferred from generation to generation.  They manifest in the ecosystem as pay gaps, digital gaps, data gaps, chore gaps, and authority gaps.  I found out this week that the tech gender pay gap in Scotland is an incredible £20,000.

My daughter and I co-founded a fintech startup, and she is now the product owner at another tech company.  She is one of the lucky ones, who has a great career and great opportunities.  We are all responsible to take urgent action to remove unconscious and conscious bias and move the dial ten times higher, and bring more women and girls into tech.  

CodeClan’s Emerging Tech Fund was launched out of recognition that there is a shortage of women, LGBTQ, and people belonging to underrepresented ethnic groups in tech.  At CodeClan, we strive to create an inclusive and welcoming community.  The fund is designed to support students who could not have otherwise afforded CodeClan’s immersive bootcamps, but who have shown aptitude to learn and succeed on our courses. 

CodeClan is Scotland’s first and only not-for-profit digital skills bootcamp.  We transform careers and unlock opportunities for diverse talent through our professional software development and professional data analysis training.  This means we run all our programmes at the lowest cost we can, aiming to get more exceptional talent into the ecosystem.  

By partnering with CodeClan, and paying it forward, companies show a commitment to diversify by hiring a graduate with limited or no prior experience in tech to join their organisations. 

Our ongoing commitment to getting diverse talent into the ecosystem faster, and to help companies be more successful, has seen us place more than 2,000 students with over 300 companies.  If we have an ask, it’s that even more companies join the fold so we can be even more impactful.