For all the science and engineering that goes into technology it is in fact the design of each piece of technology that determines its value, function, and commercial appeal. Design is fundamentally a creative pursuit, and one that benefits when it comes from the experiences and ideologies of people from diverse backgrounds.

With women so underrepresented in technology, this means that the critical design component in product development is being inhibited from reaching its full potential.

Currently, women only make up 25 percent of the ICT industry. This is down from 30 percent in the 1990s. The shortage of women in the ICT sector is problematic, particularly when it comes to understanding and meeting social needs through design.

There are classic examples from the past that show the dangers of not having a diverse design team. When airbags were first commercially produced in 1970s, the specifications were made with the average male body in mind, with a group of all-male designers. Unfortunately this led to fatal results for women and children.

More recently, this month a study revealed thermostats in offices across the globe are still set to satisfy the average 154-pound (70kg), 40-year-old man whose comfort was a priority in the 1960s. With females preferring a higher room temperature than males in home and office situations, women need to rug up at their desks with cardigans and coats. It hardly seems fair, does it?

While it’s only in hindsight that we can say this wouldn’t have happened with women on the design team, it does raise a very valid argument and one that is hard to deny.

Modern workplaces continue to hire ‘like-minded’ individuals who they see as having the same capabilities as themselves. This means that the exchange of thoughts and ideas – which then translate into products and services – have minimal diversification, and as the above examples show, an outcome of an imperfect and often dysfunctional design.

Research from MIT found that with a greater proportion of women in a group, there was better collaboration and improved decision making. The study showed that the more emotional intelligence found in a team, the more effective it will be.

Following the ACS Women’s 10th Anniversary celebration event in Sydney, it was clear that gender diversity in ICT, as well as being fair, makes good business and economic sense, especially in terms of the design of new products and services.

This was one of the key topics discussed at the event by ACS Women Board director, Alison Orr, who said technology adds to the community, but in order for it to be effective, design work needs to have a gender diverse viewpoint.

“Diversity helps people to understand a problem from many perspectives and finds a better way to fix it to ultimately create better products,” she said.

But with so few women included in the ICT workforce, there is clearly a problem of having enough women to make the contribution in every design situation.

Steps in the right direction are beginning to be made. From Male Champions for Change in Australia working to achieve change on gender equality issues in organisations and communities, to grassroots initiative Code Club which through their coding programs encourage young girls to pursue careers in technology. ACS Women is also addressing this issue with women from each state and territory in Australia being called upon to provide female role models ICT.

Women and other people from underrepresented groups being available for inclusion with design teams to achieve the sort of outcomes we have identified must be found in sufficient numbers. We all must work harder to achieve that.

Our education system from K-12 to Higher Education must reflect on the reasons so few women complete ICT courses, industry must consider why women are not attracted to a career in ICT, and politicians must get their heads around the digital disruption and the future and what this means for training and skills development to service the needs that are emerging each day.

Without this, we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past and in the process fail to realise the benefits of diversity in design.

ABOUT BRENDA ANSLEY//

ACS president Brenda Aynsley has two passions in this life: to promote the value of professionalism as a necessary condition for all practitioners of ICT and to promote the internet as a communications medium that can enable and empower citizens and communities.

We live in a digital world where information and communications technology (ICT) is a fundamental driver of productivity growth, competitiveness and innovation. With ICT sitting at the core of virtually every product and service we consume, there are significant implications for the skill sets needed in our economy. The job roles that will be required in a digital world, and therefore, the way in which our education system prepares today’s young people for successful careers has to change.

Successful economies of tomorrow will need people who can go beyond knowing how to consume and use technology. They will need to know how to create and build new products and services based on new technologies.

The problem
The main problem is a requirement to update the current education curriculum with improved technology learning right from primary schools. At the same time, ICT teaching needs to speak to both boys and girls, who have different learning needs. Current approaches favour boys.

As it stands, more than two-thirds of Australia’s ICT workforce is made up of men, with just 28 percent women. A core part of this issue traces back to education programmes, recognised in Australia as early as 2007, but with little done about it since.

Fundamentally, all the way from kindergarten and onwards, girls are not taught in ways that are meaningful to them, particularly in the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths). In the US, girls currently comprise just 12 percent of university computer science students. But Berkeley University was able to drive a huge increase in female sign-ups by simply changing the title of a computer science class from ‘Introduction to Symbolic Programming’ to ‘Beauty and the Joy of Computing’. Today, there are almost equal enrolments between men and women in that class.

What can be done about it?
Computational thinking needs to be recognised in our education system as a foundation skill alongside numeracy and literacy, and just as boys receive special attention in recognition of their learning difficulties attributable to gender differences (such as reading and in behavioural issues), so too do girls need to be taught in ways that are meaningful to them.

School systems need to review how they are delivering education. We need to create classes that engage young females right from an early age, if we are ever to increase female participation in ICT.

Businesses also need to do what they can to support improved participation in ICT from women. We are seeing fantastic initiatives starting to emerge, with specifically designed coding programmes such as Girls Who Code. Even influential female celebrities are getting on board; Victoria’s Secret model Karlie Kloss has recognised the need for more women in the industry and has developed The Kode With Karlie Scholarship.

US Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is on board, as demonstrated by her having put gender issues, including women in technology, at the centre of her campaign.

For its part, the ACS is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Women in IT Board and has worked hard to get this issue on the national agenda.

There is no time to waste. With some estimates indicating that up to half of the job roles of today will disappear in the next 10 years because of automation, employment is moving up the supply chain. With fewer low skill jobs and increased demand for jobs requiring high technology and ICT-related proficiencies, we must act now to help prepare today’s school students, both male and females, for the digital world of the future.

ABOUT BRENDA ANSLEY//

ACS president Brenda Aynsley has two passions in this life: to promote the value of professionalism as a necessary condition for all practitioners of ICT and to promote the internet as a communications medium that can enable and empower citizens and communities.

The ongoing pursuit of perfection in business relies a great deal on understanding the needs of the customer and ensuring those needs are met. In previous years though, the act of defining those needs was more difficult than it really should have been. When customers were spread geographically it simply wasn’t feasible to reach out to them individually without incurring a significant cost. There would then be the matter of identifying if there was a strong enough ROI to justify the expense of what really amounted to a direct mail campaign.

In the last decade the pervasive nature of technology has helped to shift the balance of ROI by dramatically lowering the level of investment required. As a result of this, more businesses are now drilling deeper into their customer base and gathering far more information than they ever thought they could. Even the recent changes to privacy legislation in Australia will not immediately slow this gathering of data, although businesses are well advised to ensure they know the changes and are compliant.

While this is undoubtedly a positive for business, it carries with it some significant risk. With so much data being collected, transmitted and stored it is vital that data security be at the forefront of CRM. This doesn’t simply speak to the technical elements of security in storage and transmission, but also to the calibre of staff used to develop, maintain and operate these systems.

Consider this – in 1963 Ronnie Biggs had to stop a train to steal around $A82 million in today’s money. If he had wanted to steal something of the same value now, he could do so by acquiring a USB key with the customer data of a bank on it. Of course, these aren’t readily available, but it only takes one rogue employee to place customer data, and indeed the future of a business, at risk.

It seems, however, that more and more businesses are prepared to hire people to manage their customer data without first identifying whether or not they are a suitable person to be the custodian of such a valuable asset. This raises the question of whether businesses should be undertaking mandatory background checks of potential employees.

What business should consider is whether or not they are hiring professionals to manage their data. In fields such as accountancy, law and medicine the definition of a professional is clearly understood and in some is managed by the relevant professional association often in conjunction with the State. We do not have a legislated requirement for an individual working in ICT – anyone can provide ICT services to a client and yet in many ICT roles, access to private or commercially sensitive information is easy. It does not appear that this will change in the immediate future, which is why the role of recognised industry associations is so important.

Members can be accredited as professionals within their field which carries with it certain guarantees, much like a legal or medical professional and members can be sanctioned in a similar manner should they not uphold the industry agreed standards. This is called professionalism.

The field of customer data management is fraught with risk. It therefore requires a great deal of risk mitigation. In the field of ICT, I believe that professionalism is the best form of risk mitigation. If you thought hiring a professional was expensive, just wait until you hire an amateur and things go wrong.

ABOUT BRENDA AYNSLEY//

Brenda Aynsley OAM was a founding member of the South Australian Internet Association and Chair of the SA Committee of the Pearcy Foundation from 2006-2012. In 2008 she was awarded honorary life membership of the ACS, and in 2013 was elected as the first female President of the organisation.