Welcome everybody. Thank you for joining my talk. It's now 10 th 1130. So I'll kick it off again. Thank you for joining my talk. The only one in the room in the next 15 to 20 minutes.I would like to share with you who I am, how I became a woman in it. What I learned on my journey and I want to talk about the strategies I believe are important to be successful in the field. First, a little bit about myself. I was born in Vienna, Austria. My father is from Nigeria. My mother is from Austria. My father was studying in Austria when I met, when he met my mom. So when he finished with his studies, they packed up the family and moved to Nigeria where I grew up. I came back to Vienna when I was 19 and studied chemistry at the University of Vienna. Obviously, at some point, I switched careers and I'm one of the many career changers in it. I now live in Vienna again with my husband, my three Siberian cats and I've been working in it for over 20 years. Now, I'm also a mentor at Bo mentor. I write on medium about tech and personal growth and I'm very passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion in tech.

Let's take a look at my education and work journey to show how I came to be a woman in it in Nigeria where I grew up, I went to a German school which was a traditional secondary school. This was before the digital age. There were no computers, no smartphones, no internet. We didn't learn about programming or anything like that. The pinnacle of high tech I remember was a video recorder. My dad brought home from one of his business trips. It was state of the art. It had a remote control attached to it with a cable at that time, that was unimaginable comfort. And we also had a kind of video game we played Pong on the TV, um which was a black and white game where you had two paddles and bounce the ball from one side to the other. That was very futuristic in terms of gender balance school was 5050 boys and girls as you would expect at that time or, and that kind of school when I came to university, that was basically the same in the beginning. But the further I progressed through my studies, the more that changed when I was doing my phd at the Institute for Theoretical Chemistry, it was about 90% men to 10% women. The Institute for Theoretical Chemistry was also where I first came into conflict with computers.

I got really lucky. Someone asked me to join the team, even though at the time I knew nothing about programming or about UNIX systems or about it. So for me, this illustrates the power of sponsorship and trust this person believed that I could learn what I needed for that um project if I was just interested enough, and I did my lesson here is that you can always pick up the necessary skills if you're passionate about something.

This was in the nineties. At the onset of the internet, I love the technology. I came into contact with, I love computers. I loved the possibilities of the internet. And I quickly realized that I wanted to be part of this revolution. So I decided to stay in it. And after I graduated, my first job was at a company called web free TV. They, at that time, they were making free. Um How can I say free TV, for the internet? Which was basically a precursor to youtube at the time when everyone was still surfing with a modem. Here, I learned another important lesson shortly after they hired me as a web developer, they told me a Linux specialist was coming on board. At that point, I had been working with Linux and UNIX systems for over six years. So my expectations were really high when this guy started, I found out that he had installed one Linux server in his life. This illustrates very nicely how different men and women rate their expertise. Never forget that. When looking for a job, it doesn't matter if you fulfill 100% of what is listed in a job ad, just go for it even if it's just 50% that fits your profile. My career then progressed through working at software companies in Munich as a Munich specialist. I came back to Vienna, worked at IBM partner company as a systems engineer. I went on to work for different it members always in presales, technical roles. I switched companies.

I grew more experienced and I learned about a lot of new technologies. What never changed through all these years was the gender imbalance. The picture on the right is a few years old. I took it at a sales kickoff. I attended with while working at Riverbed. As you can see here, there are hardly any other women in the room. I would go as far as to say that there isn't a single other woman in the room and this has often been my reality. And unfortunately, after more than 20 years in tech, tech still isn't really diverse in some places, it even seems to be declining. If you look at the numbers on the left. Uh Yes, on the left, you see that in 2020 only 25% of the employees working at the big tech giants which is Google Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft were women 25%. And also if you look at the graph by the US Bureau of Census, the percentage of women in science and tech in the US has decreased in the nineties. This is a very, very sad situation. So being the only one in the room can come with self doubt for me, it wasn't only being the only woman I live in the middle of Europe.

And I'm also very often the only black person in the room being female and black can make you feel very conspicuous in a room full of men in black suit and tie. So I clearly remember conferences where everyone around me looked so similar that I had issues picking out the people I knew from the crowd. I was uh kind of um compared to the situation with a fish swarm, that's what it was like, you know, all these men in it. So it's normal that not seeing anyone that you look that looks like you brings up subconscious doubts. You might start asking yourself, do I belong here? Is there a place for me at this table? Are my ideas even valid? And if I say something wrong, will it reflect badly on other women? And this of course, creates a certain amount of pressure. If you're like me, you feel the need to represent your gender and race as best as you can. If you don't want your failures or mistakes to reflect badly on how people like you are perceived, you're constantly hyperaware of your behavior. This can be a heavy burden to carry for some women. This has been the reason for some of them to leave their jobs. Even in the wom women in the workplace report that you can read on the Lean in.org um web page.

You see that women who are on these as they call them often have a significantly, significantly worse experience at work than women working with other women. And 1.5 and 1.5 times more likely to think about leaving their jobs. So this is a situation that can arise from being the only one in the room. I personally was very lucky. I did not feel that burden very heavily. I worked with people that were quite supportive. And despite the fact that the prospect of being the only one in the room might learn that this might look daunting working in. It is actually amazing. In my opinion. For example, I've been working remotely out of my home or in mixed mode long before the pandemic. The flexibility that gives uh that this gives you is just great and you can't find it anywhere else. I feel if I look at the way my friends are working, they all have a fixed 9 to 5 situation where they have to go to the office normally. So working in it gives you the opportunity to juggle private and professional life. So much easier. This is something to keep in mind, especially if you're still planning to have a family with kids. So the fact that diversity is such a big topic nowadays in tech has opened a multitude of new opportunities for women like us, the people that can fill them are still very scarce and talent is rare and this is not likely to change soon.

I get job offers all the time and yet you can be sure to easily find a job for the foreseeable future. Digitalization is now at the core of the way we live. This means there will be job security in it for years to come. Keep that in mind. And this is also a field that pays extremely well. You will be earn, you will earn more money than in typically female fields working on in tech will help you achieve financial independence in the end. And furthermore, you can be part of the people who design the way the future looks since digital solutions are pervasive in every walk of life. All this outweighs the possibility down possible downsides in my opinion. Mm So the recent couple of years have brought a lot of positive changes as well. I talked a little bit about the negative side of being the only one in the room. But companies have finally come to the realization that diversity is a benefit and are actively working on diversifying their workforce. So I've been at the ember for about five years now. And I've seen a significant change. And the reason for this is that it has been shown that people who are different and that is not just women bring new ideas and approaches to tech, they are needed to ensure there is less bias in the tech and the algorithms we develop, we need diversity to ensure that tech represents all of the population that is about to use.

it. Also, women are much better leaders, statistics show that their teams perform better and are more productive. This is most likely because they're more communicative and they're more empathetic since diversity actually inf influence influences the bottom line of the companies, companies now strive to get their hands on the diverse talent that is out there and this is making working in it more.

I would like to say comfortable uh for women like us so to succeed in the field or in any field for that matter, be aware of the different ways men and women tend to behave in the workplace. There are different career strate strategies that we have. We women tend to forget to talk about what we are doing and assume our superiors will see how great our work is. This is most likely not true. We overvalue competence, keeping our head down until we know all the details of our job role instead of interacting. This makes us invisible instead of successful because nobody knows what we're doing. Then we tend to minimize our achievements and our presence. We willingly make room in a crowded room. For example, this is a very positive human trait, don't get me wrong. But in the workplace, it makes us look as if we lack self-confidence to take up room. Women also often suffer from the deceased to please as it's called, we want to be perceived as nice and this makes it hard for us to say no, when we're asked to take over a task, but these tasks take time away from more important things that would promote our careers. These habits are holding us back. Meanwhile, men who are good at self promotion, who constantly talk about where they want to go pull ahead in their career journey because they are better adapted to playing the game or to be more precise, the game was structured around their habits.

So if you want to um succeed, working in a career, especially in a male dominated field, there are a number of strategies that will help you progress. One is define your goals, be clear about the direction you want your career to go and communicate it to your managers. Don't hold back with what with your wishes and dreams, tell them where you want your career to go and keep repeating it. Men tend to forget stuff. Remember that, no one will know how great you are. If you don't show it off a little self promote, don't wait for someone to see your genius, talk about your projects and your successes make them visible. Remember, it's not bragging if it's true and learn to say no, agree only or mostly to tasks that will further your career. Don't try to be nice to someone trying to flog off work at you say no to busy work, don't self reject. This is a very important topic. Ask for support and for opportunities. Don't be the one to say no to something you want before someone had chance to say yes to you. Get and, and give you what you want. You will be surprised that rejection is less likely than you assume and finally build good networks in your workplace.

People need to know you because when there are opportunities they have to know your face and your name and leverage the relationships you build, there's nothing wrong with asking someone for help. So and while you are on your way, you can help making sure that the, the times you are the only one in the room become less frequent, be an advocate for diversity and inclusion. When you have the, the uh the time and the space build a wise which is a women in solution engineering or women in technology network in your company. You can go to the Wise Web page and get tips on how to go about that. I clearly remember that last year when Sarah Swagman started the Wise Network at VM ware. I it felt empowering just to see how many women were already in tech roles in the company. We have this zoom meeting and seeing all their faces together on the screen made me feel as a part of the community finally and less like the only one in the room if you have the chance be a role model and represent women in it. So we have more visibility for me. This means speaking at conferences like this and showing what I do. I mentor and I have created an interview series where I spot like women in it and the roles they are, they have there to make us more visible.

I want to show how diverse we are and how different our paths into it were. With this initiative, I want to make women understand that we are not different from them. There's no special about a special thing about being a woman in it. We're just women and with a specific interest. And we want, I want to emphasize that there is a place for them in tech. I would like to invite all of you watching and uh watching the the recording later to contact me and let me spotlight you and add you to your story to the series. So while I'm interviewing these amazing women, I always learn a lot from them. And there are certain topics that I want to share that come up again and again. So the first one is find a mentor or a sponsor, find someone who will help you define goals and execute on them and also check in with you and give you tips on your career progression. Sponsorship. On the other hand, can be much more important. There's a slight difference between mentorship and sponsorship. A sponsor is someone who will actually give you an opportunity, who will be there and say your name when an opportunity arises. This is so important.

It's not enough to tell you what kind of habits you should develop or what kind of strategies work. There must be someone who actually gives you the chance, like the person who made me, who, who allowed me to come to the Institute for Theoretical Chemistry, even though I did not have all the skills yet. And a second thing everyone says is follow your interests, follow your passion. So there is a saying from Simon Sim Sink that goes don't hire for skills, hire for attitude. You can always teach skills, you can teach attitude and this is so true. If you have a passion for something, you will always be able to acquire the necessary skills, just remain curious. It's curiosity is so much more important than knowing everything at the start, just go ahead and do it and you got this. So and the last part that comes up of course is build strong networks, find peers, find other women in tech, um reach out network, talk to people exchange information, talk about what works and what about, talk about what doesn't work. So just don't just share successes, share failures as well. So people can learn from your experience. So with this, I come to the end of my presentation and I want to thank you all for being here.

Um I would be happy to connect uh to you on linkedin and I would enjoy it if you watched my channel and reached out to me to be interviewed for that. Thank you so much for being here.