The novel coronavirus is accelerating the fundamental societal and business change we live in and women need to scale up their competencies to be ready for the new world of automation and digitization. This is one of the main conclusions of the special online discussion “Women in Times of Transformation. Impact with Femininity”. The discussion, organized by MOVE.BG and the Bulgarian Center of Women in Technology (BCWT), took place on the last day of Bulgaria`s COVID-19 national emergency and presented three important viewpoints: an expert from a big corporation, a young entrepreneur, and an experienced academic. The dialogue was part of TrendingTopics`online conference “The Big Reset”.
“The last few months were challenging for all of us. In this period we witnessed changes in all aspects of our personal and professional life. We also realized that today we need good leadership and digital skills more than ever before,” Irina Altunova, program coordinator of BCWT, said.
Countries led by women are managing the COVD-19 crisis better, claims an interesting analysis by Forbes. Examples of female political leaders include the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel and Denmark's prime minister Mette Frederiksen.
However, women continue to be underrepresented in many key industries, especially in the digital world and STEM-related sectors. And the gender diversity gap in the corporate world is still very serious. The crisis deepens those balances but COVID- 19 creates also an opportunity - we need to focus on women’s participation in the IT sector more than ever before.”
Women's participation and empowerment
Stereotypes still exist and we need to tackle that challenge every day, explained Rumiana Stoilova, professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and chair of the Bulgarian Sociological Association. For example, 20% of IT managers say that they will have problems when employing young women because of the risk of becoming mothers.
“To speak about female leadership during this crisis is very important just to give examples, to meet the requirement of no woman-no panel. The emergency [COVID-19] unit in our country consists only of men - they are dealing well, but we need women at this time, we need to invite women in every team and to repeat no woman-no team. We need to show through this requirement the capability of women to be reliable, to have enough quality.
We should question the stereotypes in every situation because they are existing. This is the role of organizations such as our - BCWT - to show role models, to show women that are really good, and to keen to support other women.”
Women entrepreneurs have been very productive and focused during the pandemic while working from home, noted Pavlina Desheva, founder of the web design studio WebDesh & Kreslo.studio. At the same, the COVID-19 crisis shows us that it is very easy to overwork and come to the verge of burnout. Therefore, we need to keep ourselves stronger for longer and take breaks or do small rituals and small practices daily Polly said.
“I saw tendencies in the small and startup businesses that are quite interesting. The crisis is speeding up the inevitable things that we were expecting to see in 5-10 years. On the other hand, we cannot stay blind that people are losing jobs in certain industries more than in others.
One of the things that will be very popular and has started yet is to retrain yourself and change fields. It was inevitable that technology would take certain jobs and now that process is speeded up, we will see a boom in e-commerce and digital art. I was very happy to see how fast the changes are happening and how supportive the people had become.”
On the first row, from left to right: Rumiana Stoilova and Pavlina Desheva. On the second row, from left to right: Irina Altunova and Milena Doumanova.
The current pandemic accelerates the automation and digitization of the economy and higher educated people with advanced competencies and higher skills will become the much-needed professionals, said Milena Doumanova, director of Global Virtual Sales at Cisco Systems, Eastern Europe, RCIS, Switzerland. Therefore, we should start reskilling and scaling up our competences. This is especially important to women, according to Milena, because of the stereotypes and higher barriers female professionals face in some industries such as ICT.
“Empowerment of women is a key element because society and employers need to encourage women to exercise their skills. But, on the other side, I also observe that the young generations - the Millenials and the Gen Z - take power, they feel fewer limitations. They are very keen on technology, digitization, and e-commerce - which is key because if you are not online whatever you do - you have no chance.
So in a very natural way, the current situation helps to surface the skills entrepreneurs need. The young ladies will lead this change and will be an inspiration for the others just because they have the mentality, they come from this digital world - for them, it is very natural to bring their ideas online and to use all technology - from social media to e-commerce platforms - to make it happen. The more examples we share and the more initiatives undertake - this will encourage everybody else not only to reskill but to rethink how to use the new skills and competences.”
Watch the full discussion here.
SHEleader2020
SHEleader@digital is an annual international conference taking place in Sofia that provides a platform for a focused discussion on the women’s role in the digitally connected world we live in. It aims to outline solutions for attracting more women and girls to take on professional and leadership roles in the ICT and digitally empowered economy. The Conference also examines how women's authenticity and the application of female values contribute to the development of sustainable and balanced organizations with high potential and prosperous societies.
SHEleader@digital brings together key female leaders from the business sector, non-profits, and public institutions from across Europe to engage in a dialogue on how we can effectively address those challenges and more importantly, set the tone to act upon solving them.
SHEleader@digital 2020 is organized by BCWT, MOVE.BG and Ministry of Labor and Social Policy. The official partners of the event are the World Bank, Visa, Dell, VMware Bulgaria, Cisco, Progress, Uber, Lidl Bulgaria, Experian Bulgaria, HeleCloud, and Easy Consult.
Reserve your place for SHEleader@digital on September 17 and 18. Register here.
