International Women's Day

International Women's Day (IWD) has been celebrated since the early 1900's. This year it fell on March 8th and was a holiday in around 20 countries (but not in the UK as it fell on a Sunday!). So what does this have to do with Capgemini and the BTC?

Capgemini has been celebrating IWD this week. There have been various activities, including interviews with a selection of women in Capgemini on our intranet site, e-cards to send to our colleagues and women's networking events. We have a Women's Business Network in Capgemini which holds networking evenings at various times around the year - these include guest speakers - and are a great opportunity to meet and speak to other women in business.

I was fortunate enough to attend a BTC women's networking event this week. There was a a good turnout of female BTC grads, representatives from our Enterprise Architecture business unit and senior management. It was a great chance to catch up with familiar faces and meet some new people. The evening involved listening to experiences of working in both the Architecture area and Capgemini as a whole, and a chance to have conversations with those present. What did we talk about? Well there were a range of issues from architecture through to how we should encourage more women into technology roles. (In case you wondered the general consensus of how to encourage more women into IT was to encourage role models and try to ditch the stereotype of technology being "geeky").

But what are we celebrating? We are celebrating women's achievements in society and the diversity that women bring to the workplace. IWD also celebrates the political and social achievements that women have made over the past century. There are some interesting gender facts at IWD Facts including this one: 'Women's representation in computer and information sciences workforce is around 30% globally', a topic which I have addressed in my previous post on Women and Technology. Currently Capgemini's figure is around 25%, so we still have some way to go to reach the 30% figure quoted.  

IWD is not about saying that men or women are better than each other but rather celebrating that we work together so well. So, for all you guys out there, please don't feel left out, celebrate with us, and remember International Men's Day is only 6 months away!