TechGig Geek Goddess 2018 shows women can be coders too

The under-representation of women employees, especially in the technology domain, has always been a major concern with most industry players. To probe the on-ground situation at the corporate floors, TechGig – India’s largest online technology community - recently conducted the ‘Gender Diversity Survey 2018’.

The survey results re-established that the road to the top is extremely difficult for women technologists. More than 80% of women respondents in the survey revealed that they have a formal education/degree in Computer Science, and still, less than 10% women were in senior management positions. Even at the team lead level, the representation of women was poor with just 13% survey respondents occupying this position. As many as 70% of women surveyed claimed that gender bias existed in their organisation.

These findings again reinforce that Diversity and Inclusion programs need to be a top priority at all organisations.

Platforms like TechGig Geek Goddess are a step in that direction with an aim to provide the right environment and career advancement opportunities for women technologists. Presently, TechGig Geek Goddess 2018 edition is underway with more than 68,000+ registrations.

Other than the main coding contest, this edition also hosted two theme-based hackathons, namely IoT Hackathon and Machine Learning Hackathon. Among these, Machine Learning emerged as the most popular skill based on the number of registrations.

TechGig Geek Goddess 2018 is presented by American Express, a globally integrated payments company.  Goldman Sachs, a global investment bank and active investor in India, is the title sponsor of TechGig Geek Goddess 2018.

"In its fourth edition, TechGig Geek Goddess 2018 has received a remarkable response so far. I’m happy to mention that quite in line with all our previous editions we have seen a surge in the number of registrations and submissions this year. Way to go, ladies! Our best wishes are with you," said Ramathreya Krishnamurthi, Business Head, TimesJobs and TechGig.

Sharing her thoughts on the association with TechGig Geek Goddess, Ruchika Panesar, Head - Technology, American Express India said, “It is overwhelming to see women coders turn up in huge numbers for this iconic event. We are proud to be associated with this flagship event, aimed at bringing the women tech gurus of our industry to the forefront and showcasing their technology prowess. TechGig Geek Goddess serves as the cornerstone of our strategy to embrace diversity and at the same time encourage other industry organisations to recognise and utilise the abundant potential of these talented women.”

Shubha Iyer, a Managing Director in Technology at Goldman Sachs Bengaluru said, “At Goldman Sachs we share a passion to build an ecosystem to support women in technology and have aligned our efforts through an array of programs dedicated to ‘Women in Engineering’. As a fellow female in technology, I am encouraged to see the active participation and embrace the vision to strengthen our national workforce by fostering more women engineers.”

Sanjay Goyal, Vice President and Product and Technology Head at TimesJobs and TechGig said, “It's heartening to see such enthusiastic participation at TechGig Geek Goddess 2018. Going by the participation level in this edition, Machine Learning is the most popular skill with women technologists. This bolsters the fact that women programmers are second to none when it comes to experimenting with new technologies. Kudos to all the participants".

Some of the popular programming languages this year are C, C++, Java and Python. India’s Silicon Valley Bengaluru is presently leading the race with the maximum participants, closely followed by Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune.