“The tech industry has a marketing problem!”

Women are still a rarity in the tech world - that can't stay that way! Yip Thy-Diep Tha, blockchain expert and founder of the all-female SystAIn3r Hackathon, explains in an interview with 42 Heilbronn how the scene needs to change in order to attract more women. A conversation about an overdue re-branding, new ways of working and programming with purpose.

Yip, why is it important for more women to gain a foothold in the tech world?

The tech industry is currently one of the most valuable industries of all. It is home to the companies with the largest market capitalization, and there is hardly any other industry where so much money flows. If women are not represented here, it means that they remain excluded from this value chain. And that would have serious consequences for income distribution and the gender pay gap.

What's more, this area is still emerging and growing, see AI and Web3. There is still a huge amount of room for maneuver here, unlike in other sectors such as banking. This makes it all the more important for women to have their say and get involved now. After all, these technologies will determine our future and must not just be designed by men.

A look at the figures is not exactly promising: in 2021, the proportion of women on computer science degree courses was just under 22%.

These figures are frustrating, but not exactly surprising. After all, the tech world is failing to create an attractive offer for women. When it comes to programming, many people think of complex algorithms and long data sets. But no one can really imagine what you can do with it. Yet this is absolutely crucial for women when choosing a career: we know that women are more likely to choose their work based on meaningfulness and social impact. And this is exactly where the industry has a huge marketing problem! That's why my goal is to rebrand the scene according to the motto: “Technology as a force for good.”

You've been involved in blockchain for a long time. What is it like for you personally to be one of the few women working in a male-dominated industry?

It hardly bothers me any more. Because: I just do it like Pippi Longstocking and make the world the way I like it. I've started giving talks and organizing more and more events myself to bring women in the industry closer together and bring in new women. In this way, I have gradually built up a network. At the end of September, the SystAIn3r Hackathon took place in Munich, which is explicitly aimed at women - a great and inspiring experience. In the challenges, we combined the topics of AI, blockchain and sustainability and invited women from all different industries to find smart solutions for the future.  

That sounds very interdisciplinary. How does it work in practice?

In the tech world, we not only need female software developers with technical expertise, but also knowledge from all other areas. For example, if I want to optimize data sets for the Environmental Social Criteria (ESG), I also need environmental experts and social scientists. Otherwise I always end up in dead ends. When I bring women from different fields together, completely new holistic approaches emerge. And another effect is that as soon as women from other sectors have been there and seen what great things are possible with the technology, they are hooked - and want to understand how it works better themselves.

Are there any other differences to conventional hackathons?

Absolutely! Our events follow a fundamentally different design. For women, things are often important that don't get any attention in existing hackathons, such as atmosphere and environment. At a typical hackathon, you come in, there's pizza and beer everywhere, plus 10,000 LAN cables, everyone sits in front of their computers and the air is stagnant because it's aired out maybe once a day. In contrast, our hackathon is almost like a retreat: the rooms are aesthetically pleasing, there are wellbeing and yoga sessions in between and you feel welcome from minute one. We also focus on completely different ways of working, as women work much more collaboratively. Between work sessions, there are always short coaching sessions where we can exchange ideas and present our projects to each other. This has also been shown: By talking and listening to each other in this way, you learn a lot from each other and therefore learn better and faster overall.

An alternative would be to get involved in existing formats and bring about change...

We did that! In one of my initiatives, we coached women who then competed in a total of 15 teams at a hackathon in France and won 50,000 dollars in prize money. Something like that is hugely important to show: We don't need women in the tech world to fulfill the women's quota - but because they are good! But you can't square the circle either. These formats cannot be turned completely on their head. And instead of always trying to optimize old processes and make them just a little bit better, I would rather create something completely new and innovative. Because that is urgently needed, also for society as a whole.

Keyword “improve”: What can 42 Heilbronn do to support its female students even more?

At this point, I can only say: 42 is already doing a lot of things very well! Aspects such as collaborative and joint work, which we are trying to establish more and more in the scene, have long been an essential part of the training here. In addition, 42 offers a real home for new coders through its community - and therefore a great place to arrive in the scene!