About Women in Tech

Women in Tech ZA was founded as a means to showcase the diverse and talented women working in ICT in South Africa. Since its founding, Women in Tech ZA has evolved from purely profiling local women in tech to also raising awareness of how to address the gender gap in the sector. Today Women in Tech ZA participates in outreach and awareness activities - such as speaker slots and media engagements - showcases women in the sector and publishes news and views of relevance to its audience.

Only 23% of tech jobs are held by women in South Africa – out of 236 000 ICT (tech) roles, women occupy 56 000 of them. As a sector, we need to hire women to improve diversity in the workplace (and it’s been proven that higher diversity equals higher productivity and profit). But we cannot find women with the required skills, and we cannot attract young women to the sector because when they look at conferences, in the media and inside technology companies, they mainly see men (who they can’t relate to), doing what they perceive to be ‘boring’ jobs.
 
In order to improve both one and two, Women in Tech ZA aims to change the image of the tech sector by showing the world the diverse faces of ICT.
 
Women in Tech ZA’s activities centre around the Women in Tech ZA site, which profiles local women in the technology sector. The premise is simple – if you are female and in tech, we want to feature you. The idea is to profile as many women as possible, across a range of roles and seniority levels.
 
As part of its advocacy efforts, Women in Tech ZA speaks regularly at conferences including Tech4Africa, SQLSat JHB & CT, Standard Bank Top Women, Africa Tech Week and others. Samantha also judges the GSMA Awards, which are announced at Mobile World Congress.