Diversity only makes us stronger
Hello.
For those readers in South Africa, I hope you’re enjoying the long weekend, which results from Women’s Day on Friday.
This national holiday gives South Africa reason, and time, to reflect on the vital roles that women play in society. As ITWeb, it gives us opportunity to focus on women’s inclusion in the ICT sector – where changes are being made and where more needs to be done. We'll look at the numbers more fully in the coming week on ITWeb.
The good news is that there are various initiatives that seek to encourage women into the space. One such initiative is the Wired4Women forum, which ITWeb Brainstorm has been heavily involved with. One of Wired4Women’s objectives is to celebrate female excellence in the sector, which, this year, included its first awards programme, with awards handed out at a banquet in May. Also, this year Brainstorm and Wired4Women produced a directory of 100 Influential Women in Tech, which showcases female role models to inspire upcoming generations. It’s been sent to universities and TVET colleges so that young women studying can see there are people like them making a difference in the sector. If you’d like to access this book, you can do so online or order physical copies from our Peter@itweb.co.za in our circulation department.
This week’s episode of ITWeb TV features a woman who faces an incredibly tough task. Sithembile Songo, Eskom's CISO, is charged with keeping our national energy company secure from attacks on its vast, diversified IT and OT ecosystem.
Looking internally, ITWeb is more technology ‘industry-adjacent’ than producing and selling technology products and services ourselves, so we perhaps benefit from a higher level of available and relevant female skills. Over the company’s near-30 year history we’ve had incredibly talented and driven women doing great things across the business. I've been fortunate to work with many of these women, and I honestly believe the company would not have experienced anywhere near the levels of success it has today without their contributions.
And while I’d like to encourage readers to use this Women's Day/Women's Month period to recognise and celebrate the women who are already making a difference in their organisations or the wider ICT sector, actually, I’d rather we took the message to heart on an ongoing basis – recognise, celebrate, enable, encourage, support, uplift, reward and empower. Diversity only makes us stronger.
Until next time…
Adrian Hinchcliffe
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