SA corporations help to close the gender gap

FINDING a career in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields is becoming increasingly difficult, especially for women, as there remains a gender gap in STEM-related careers.

One factor as to why this gap continues to grow is the various challenges that women face when looking to enter the professional field. Statistics from Unicef South Africa show that less than 28.5% of women graduate to careers in STEM.

Regional director of Sub-Sahara at Arçelik and CEO of Defy Appliances Mustafa Soylu said many South African corporations need to do better to actively transform the gender gap in STEM fields.

Soylu said Defy South Africa and parent company Arçelik have taken steps to ensure that the issue surrounding gender inequality in the STEM field will be taken care of.

Together with the UN Women’s Generation Equality Forum, the gender equality movement in innovation and technology forms the backbone of the newly-launched WE-InTech programme. The programme offers training, internships and job opportunities to women in STEM. It is open to any women currently in their third or fourth year of their undergraduate studies.

“Creating a workforce with STEM skills is critical to achieving global economic growth. Our aim with the WE-inTech project is to raise awareness by emphasising the importance of Research and Development (R&D), encourage young women to pursue careers in related fields and implement a long-term and effective programme to increase women’s participation in new generation R&D,” Soylu says.

Applications are open until May 23, 2022. Once accepted, the programme includes a three-day workshop, a one-year mentoring and coaching programme to guide students in their professional career development journeys.

More information can be found at: https://www. we-intech.com/