By MKPE ABANG
For the second year running, the place of women in the unfolding digitisation consequence cutting across the whole spectrum of the business world will feature prominently at this year’s CeBIT conference.
The organisers said despite studies revealing a great deal of wasted potential, less than 20 per cent of all IT specialists employed by German companies are women. And for this and other salient reasons, this year’s CeBIT conference “will address this imbalance for the second year running.”
It follow the successful premiere last year of Women in Digital Business as a sub-theme in the CeBIT conference, hence it is back again for CeBIT 2016, as an initiative on the part of Deutsche Messe as the makers of CeBIT and Germany’s Bitkom association, the Vogel IT Academy and the Women’s IT Network. Taking place on Thursday, 17 March, the conference will feature an inspirational series of keynotes by experts from Accenture, BASF, Google and other companies. The event will be held in the conference area of Hall 2, with some 150 attendees expected.
“Companies with greater gender diversity have track records for greater creativity,” remarks Marius Felzmann, Senior Vice President at Deutsche Messe.
The need for action is great, since the industry – based on the findings of numerous studies – continues to squander a great deal of potential, with less than 20 percent of IT specialists at German enterprises being women.
Martina Koederitz, General Manager of IBM Germany since 201, is among the women who hold executive positions. She sees a strong need for action, particularly in the startup community, where founders are predominantly men – despite the fact that women account for roughly half of all university graduates. The reason: Women tend to opt for other careers. For this reason, Koederitz is urging young women to strike out in new directions with courage and self-confidence and found their own businesses in tomorrow’s digital world.
Andera Gadeib likewise emphasizes the need for audacity and self-confidence as key factors in launching startups. In 1999 she founded her first enterprise, the digital market research firm Dialego. Gadeib also recommends early schooling in digital creativity so as to encourage young people – especially women – to later take up careers in the digital realm. Gadeib emphasisizes that only heterogeneous corporate cultures can serve as prime incubators for outstanding ideas.
Inspirational keynotes, world cafés and think tanks will address hot topics such as women in management, corporate evolution, change management and business startups. Afterwards, participants will get together at a big networking event – the Bitkom Executive Night. “For us, it’s all about helping highly qualified women to take up managerial positions in the IT industry, while at the same time helping potential employers to find promising candidates,” explained Felzmann.
You’ll find a detailed interview with Martina Koederitz and additional female IT specialists on the CeBIT website, featuring the potential career opportunities for women as well as the personal milestones they experienced on the road to their IT careers.