Women Tech Quest 2022: coding their way to inclusivity

KARACHI: As Pakistan tries to make itself a more inclusive economy, tainted also by harsh reminders of how it has let the gender gap widen, a digital development company held a coding, design and testing competition over the weekend across three cities to promote women in tech.

While the event, Women Tech Quest 2022, in its sixth year, looked to bridge the gap, it also brought to the fore issues that have discouraged female participation in the workforce.

The event

Over 1,200 women in their 20s currently either studying or working (often doing both) in the tech sector came together in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad to not just compete for cash prizes but also to network, hear from speakers and attend workshops on mindfulness and wellness.

The event was organised by digital development company 10Pearls.

“We started the event to encourage women in tech who had left the industry and didn’t have the network or avenues to come back,” Syeda Sana Hussain, senior director at 10Pearls, told Business Recorder.

As with other sectors, women in tech also face pressure to quit work in an economy where female participation in the workforce remains on the lower side.

“When we held our first event, our winner was a woman who had been at home for 5 years. The competition helped her realize she hadn’t forgotten her instincts and her work.”

While it organises the event, 10Pearls also started promising participants contractual- and part-time work, as well as referring them to other software houses.

Over 4,000 women have so far grown in their careers courtesy the Women Tech Quest, but there still remains a dearth in the number of female coders in the country.

“This is because, starting from college, they face biases where all the coding work in group projects is taken by men while the women are left to design and test because they are considered good at documentation, managing and execution.

“It’s a systemic issue that starts at university level when students are doing final year projects,” Hussain explained.

This also leads to self-doubt, plus a major pay gap, because a coder or programmer who is a “pure technical resource” is paid a lot more.

Given the World Economic Forum has said closing the global gender gap could take over 100 years, many say nothing is going to happen overnight.

Another issue, Hussain said, is family restrictions.

“Even today it’s a struggle for girls to come out to these kind of events … but it’s so important that they come here and see the scope. They meet professional women – it opens their mind to the possibilities the tech sector offers.”

This includes flexible working hours, the ability to work from home, and the potential to freelance and earn in foreign currencies.

Zeeshan Aftab, co-founder and MD, 10Pearls, told Business Recorder one of the many issues is not just that many men think “women can’t work alongside them” but also women not believing in themselves.

“Mindset is a big challenge. If we can improve that – half the battle is already won.”

Aftab believes the impact on the community of Women Tech Quest has been “amazing”. There has been an increase in the number of women who apply to roles at 10Pearls and he feels the event instils more confidence in them.

“Half of learning is exposure. The event gives women a chance to visit a software company and see how things are done, and also meet with renowned personalities they wouldn’t get to know otherwise.”

One of the speakers at the event was Halima Iqbal, co-founder of Oraan, a startup that helps women access financial services that raised $3 million in September 2021.

She told Business Recorder last month was “unfortunately the first time we hired a woman developer.”

“Finding them is hard but these kinds of platforms ensure an early development of skills and is a very encouraging space.”

And that is evident from the sea of happy, chatty girls all around 10Pearls’ Karachi office. One of the winners of the coding stream, aged 20, is studying and also working as a full-time developer at ByteCorp, an Artificial Intelligence consultancy.

“I’ve been to other events but I feel very comfortable here because it’s all women. It easier to network and I want to come again next year,” she said.

As for future plans, she wants to get a scholarship to do her Masters abroad with the ultimate goal of working at Google.