As IAT (Informatics Association of Turkiye) we held the event of “WOMEN OF THE DIGITAL WORLD”, the third of the annual events held on the occasion of the International Women’s Day, on march 10, 2021.
The year’s theme was: ‘DIGITAL WOMEN OF THE WORLD: BRAVE, PRODUCTIVE, ENTREPRENEURIAL’ Unlike previous years, this year’s event hosted not only the women in informatics sector but also those who came to the fore in all sectors with the help of their digital power, and those who started and grew their businesses. Their inspiring stories met with all our women at this event.
Among the discussed topics were the digitalization journeys of the businesses in the eyes of the women engaged in informatics sector, cooperation in social networks, remote training programs, and tools of digital world.
Had it not been for these tools, we could have met with bigger challenges alongside with the others that we currently face. The service providers of our informatics sector have connected every single individual and institution to their work from the comfort of their office or home. The long-debated digital transformation, digital office, cooperation, and meeting tools were implemented in one year owing to their software. This transformation has brought along Human Resources policies and flexible and hybrid working models mostly needed by women. Every home turned into an office and teleworking became the new normal. Everyone therefore became the stakeholder of the work, project, and production under the conditions of flexibility. A major step was taken to ensure equality in employment. This has featured bold, productive, and entrepreneur women who can use the power of the informatics sector.
In this manner, we hosted the valuable leaders of social entrepreneurship, bold entrepreneurs using the power of digital, senior executives of the informatics sector, and NGO leaders:
- Melek Pulatkonak, the founder of the ‘TurkishWIN’ the global network of the Turkish women who are global citizens, promoted the project of ‘Mentoring Million Women’ The 10-year goal of this mentoring program that aims at gathering young women (aged between 15 and 25) and sectoral leaders in STEM is to hold 1 million mentor meetings. IAT Women’s Group was the project partner of this project with its corporate support.
- Başak Taşpınar,the founder of Turkiye’s largest online service platform told about the challenges she faced at that corporation that she founded depending on needs.
- Tuna Üstüner dedicated to share all her academic experience to the candidate entrepreneurs during the pandemic reaches the Turkish women directly from the United Kingdom. Her seasoned and volunteering team attributed humanity utmost importance set up the website com and share its Harvard and Oxford experience with the entrepreneurs under the name ‘mixed money’. Those receiving support from this team are not receiving any money for their services but are only providing experience to those that need, corresponding to the hours that they received these services.
- Yapıncak Erhan who founded Yasha Consulting in the UK following her leadership roles in her corporate business journey provides brand management marketing consulting and coaching services for leaders to businesses of diverse sectors of the world with the help of digital technology.
- Fatma Aydoğdu the Member of TOBB Supreme Board of Women Entrepreneurs provided information regarding the improvement of the existing works.
- The woman country manager of a major international engineering software company Elif Gürdal told about the women’s leadership in the sector and underscored the importance of raising the courage of girls in the technology sector. On one hand she told about the promises made by informatics sector to provide more opportunities of advancement for women and assessed what the reasons of the low rate of women at managerial levels, the character expected from women managers, and what kind of a woman she selected.
- Başak Burcu Yiğit, the co-founder of Istanbul Blockchain Women told about her career story in transitioning from women and environmental sciences into blockchain technology, as well as her purposes of sustainable development and the results of the research conducted in cooperation with Paribu and Akademetre regarding “Being a Woman in the Blockchain Ecosystem”
- Ceren Küpeli working as a female lawyer in a challenging sector as the informatics offenses acts as an instructor in the same sector. She provided information regarding the expectations and role models assumed by the young people as well as where law evolves to in a digitalized world.
Our Association is the only NGO that represent our country at CEPIS, and has played a major role in drafting the ‘diversity charter’ prepared by DiverseIT (the women’s branch that aims at diversity in informatics), one of the main branches of CEPIS. Criteria have been defined for enhancing the inclusion culture and rewarding programs were created for the businesses, associations and institutions at all levels.
Extending the scope of women’s labor and workforce to the businesses outside of the household is not only a social but also an economic issue. This should be considered within the scope of diversity and inclusivity. The whole opportunities offered by digital world and particularly the flexible working models during the pandemic have opened the gates for the participation of women to general workforce.
The dynamic, creative, developing and expanding technology that is open to international opportunities are consistent with the temperament of women, and require women’s mindset more. The elaborative, unifying, and multi-faceted thinking talents of women bear utmost importance for our software sector We will be in close cooperation with TOBB Software Assembly to encourage women to the software sector.
As the Informatics Association of Turkiye, we will continue to work for drawing more women to our sector every single day and raise the number of girls educated or pursuing a professional career in this field, with the efforts of our Women’s Working Group and the women work branches in digital at Cepis DiverseIT.
International Day on Women and Girls in Science
An on-line and widely attended with the theme of “From Pioneering Women to Girls in Informatics” was held by IAT (Informatics Association of Turkiye) on the occasion of “International Day on Women and Girls in Science” on February 13, 2021.
On December 22, 2015, the United Nations General Assembly recognized 11th of February as the “International Day on Women and Girls in Science” with a view to encouraging participation in STEM (Science, technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).
IAT Women’s Group held this event to draw attention to the obstacles impeding women and girls to achieve true potential and raise awareness regarding equal rights and opportunities together with the science and technology world. By holding such events, we are inspiring one another for a technology producing TURKIYE and become a role model.
As IAT Women’s Working Group we firmly believe that if women and girls are granted opportunities and if their talents, creativity, and views may be used in the rapidly growing field of science and technology, they will lead the future generations and inspire new hopes
Simge Su TOKGÖZ, Nazlı TEMUR and, Şebnem ÖZDEMİR attended that event which ushered in a new era in the domain of science and technology.
