Women are not often exposed to coding from an early age, states local delivery management software provider Loop founder and CEO Kimberly Taylor.

“The more women see how fun and exciting the information technology (IT) sector can be, the more they will be encouraged to enter the space.”

Taylor mentions another organisation, called Girlcode, that aims to empower and promote women’s involvement in the technology industry, highlighting her own aspiration that women try coding.

Girlcode was founded in 2014, evolving into an educational platform, encouraging woman to enter the industry and facilitate their skills advancement.

The initiative recently hosted its yearly hackathon on August 5 and 6, 2023, bringing together people active in software development.

Overcoming Biases

Taylor says a challenge that she has faced while working in the IT sector has been the societal stereotyping of women, as the situations during which women act assertively are taken out of context.

“I have often been confronted and told I am being aggressive or to calm down,” she elaborates, noting the disparity in the treatment of her male counterparts, who are instead regarded as confident.

It is not necessarily a result of inappropriate behaviour, but a bias where people are uncomfortable with a woman being assertive.

When dealing with the “natural command of a room” that men are afforded owing to a longstanding bias, getting people to listen to her became a difficult task, hence her developing strategies, such as storytelling, to mitigate the situation, she adds.

Taylor believes that women have a complementary skill set that they bring to the sector, but there are simply not enough women within the space.

Women “simply do not know just how powerful or impactful they can be within these spaces”, she notes, advising “we often undersell our strengths and abilities to enter the technology space”.