In August 2014, University of Thessaloniki Law School students Anastasia Siapka and Maria Dermetzi were brainstorming about how to set up a small business.Soon they realized that they needed good programming skills and to know how to set up a good website.

This realization led to “Code it like a girl“, a small enterprise aiming precisely to aid young women to familiarize themselves with programming. As Siapka explained: “Precisely because we ourselves faced so many challenges we thought it would be very useful to help women who want to do something similar”. ‘Code it Like a Girl’ has now taken the structure of a cooperative and was selected for the “Angelopoulos – Clinton Global Initiative University Fellowship“.

Another initiative aiming at bridging the gender gap in information technologies is “Django Girls” project, originated in Berlin, which involves a series of free seminars on programming languages Python and Django for women. Two young Greek scholars, Penny Travlou, a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, and Natalia Avlona, an independent researcher, joined forces in order organize the first “Django Girls” workshop in Athens. According to Avlona, the majority of the women who applied for the seminar are “unemployed middle-aged women who wish to acquire skills that will allow them to re-enter the employment market”.
 
According to research conducted by the National Documentation Center, women comprise just the 21.7% of employees in the fields of telecommunications and information technology in Greece. Furthermore, the female work force tends to be restricted to the lower ranks of any hierarchy. 
 
In order to ensure a more balanced representation of women in digital economy, the General Secretariat for Gender Equality, in collaboration with the European Centre for Women and Technology has set off to develop Women & Girls Go Digital in Greece (WGGD – G) a functional ecosystem that will assist women in pursuing ICT careers.
 

TAGS: INNOVATION | SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY