Closing the digital gender divide in ICT

This year, SA’s Women’s Month falls during one of the most challenging periods in our history — the global Covid-19 pandemic. As we emerge from the lockdown, we find a country facing greater inequality than ever before. However, we have also seen the power of information and communication technology (ICT) to reduce this inequality. 

As always during times of economic difficulty, it is women who bear the brunt of the hardship. They are the ones forced to support families and raise children with whatever means they have at their disposal. Today, key to enhancing women’s economic power is improving their connectivity and their digital skills.

It is incumbent on all stakeholders in the digital economy to build programmes and initiatives to narrow the digital gender divide. It is not just about fewer opportunities; the divide also threatens women’s lives. A recent report by the International Telecommunication Union found gender inequalities in access to, and design of, communications technology, as well as how it is used in disaster risk management. 

Women, who are already disadvantaged through digital exclusion, rural marginalisation and gender inequalities, face yet another risk if they live in disaster-prone areas.

Fewer women in tech jobs

In the workplace, the situation is not much better. According to industry association Women In Tech, of an estimated 236,000 tech jobs in SA, only 23%, or 56,000 of them, are held by women. Globally, the World Economic Forum reports that the largest gender gaps are found in areas such as cloud computing, engineering, data and artificial intelligence (AI) — the emerging jobs driving the new economy

Fixing this will take real commitment, but the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) offers us opportunities to make a big difference. 

In a recent article, UN Development Programme deputy regional director in Asia and the Pacific, Valerie Cliff, says that “as robots and AI transform global production, skilled workers with college degrees will emerge the winners”.

However, Cliff says that as these benefits are often distributed unevenly, women tend to be disadvantaged.  

The way to avoid 4IR entrenching the digital gender divide is through conscious investment in upskilling women for the new era. In Africa, the only continent where women are more likely to be entrepreneurs than men — digital empowerment comes with an enterprise development opportunity. 

Dr David Monyae, director of the Centre for Africa-China Studies at the University of Johannesburg, says that increasing access to e-commerce could have a positive effect on gender justice.  

Bias by design

The problem requires a fundamental re-evaluation of our approach to technology. Gender bias is so embedded in the industry that even design is often male-centric. 

We may already have heard of the examples where office air-conditioner settings are based on male body temperatures, while women’s metabolic rates are often 35% lower than men. In a more specifically technology context, smartphone handsets are often designed to fit a larger male hand, and there are seldom period trackers in health apps.

Voice recognition technology — one of the fundamentals of AI — also sometimes only recognises male voices. The AI and machine-learning algorithms may also have been designed from an exclusively male perspective, meaning women are discriminated against in areas as diverse as home loans, insurance and health care.

Training and culture

Resolving these biases means not being gender blind, but actively taking women into account. We must avoid programming bias into our future by investing in tech training programmes that ensure women will be part of the teams creating the technology of our 4IR future. 

Another approach is to encourage culture change in traditionally male-dominated workplaces. This would mean taking positive action such as promoting and hiring women who can become senior role models, coaching, mentorship and flexible work hours that help women balance work and life responsibilities.

Boosting women in tech needs to start with boosting women in society, education and the workplace. 

At Huawei, we have set a quota for 50% female intake in our bursary programme, our graduate programme and our Seeds for the Future development programme, to ensure greater representation of women and girls.

We support Bring A Girl Child To Work and Girls In ICT initiatives, and we partnered with the department of communication and digital technologies to deliver a tailor-made 5G course for the department’s women staff, complete with training in IoT, Cloud and Fibre-to-X through the Huawei Learning Centre. 

These are similar steps that organisations across sectors can take to empower women in the technology space. I encourage stakeholders in all industries to consider how they can narrow the digital gender divide. 

The issues go far beyond gender equity. Once women are empowered to achieve and excel through technology, the benefits will accrue not just to women, but to all of us, right across society. 

This article was paid for by Huawei Corporate.