The tech industry in the UK has seen a massive boom in the last decade. According to Tech Nation, the UK tech firms attracted more than £6 bn of venture capital funding in 2018 yet only 17% of women are part of the industry for the past decade. What are the challenges that BAME women techpreneurs face in the industry and what more needs to be done to diversify the tech firms?
“There have countless glass barriers that I break on an everyday basis. Firstly, women are not taken very seriously in the industry or boardroom meetings and although it is not explicitly mentioned, you can understand from the cumbersome responses.
“I started Gyana with the purpose to empower common people with deep-tech who do not know how to code and perhaps, do not have time or patience to learn such complex systems. But in the process, it has been extremely difficult to operate in the industry right from securing the funding to pitching to the right investors,” said Joyeeta Das, Founder of Gyana.
Gyana is a trillion-dollar vision and a comprehensive resource for how any company can leverage data science and Artificial Intelligence (AI) with zero experience. Recently, Gyana has been able to fundraise £3 mn to fuel its next stage of growth in its no-code approach to data science.
Today, more businesses are trying to address the widening gender imbalance with organisations signing up to the Tech Talent Charter. This Charter is a government-backed initiative that commits participants to adopt recruitment and retention practices to create a more diverse tech workforce. The charter is set to reach 600 signatories by the end of 2020, with corporate names including Capgemini, Vodafone, and Lloyds Banking Group, as well as many medium-sized tech firms and startups.
However, such Charters fail to acknowledge the double disadvantage that BAME women techpreneurs face in the industry. Highbrow is a video-on-demand platform similar to Netflix but instead of entertainment it offers curated educational videos over a range of categories- from cooking to history to languages. A subscription-based portal, it charges £5.99 per month in comparison to existing platforms such as YouTube Kids, and Disney-which charges £4.99 per month among others. Priyanka Raswant is the CEO and Founder of Highbrow says,
“It was terribly difficult to find funding. The UK funding structure isn't very mature and it is evident in the fact that we don't have unicorns in the system.
“But more importantly it is hard to fundraise as a woman. I don't remember the number of times at pitch meetings where investors have openly told me of how I should not be pursuing so and so project. More importantly, there have been subtle instances.”
Recent research has indicated that more than eight out of 10 female millennials in the UK say they seek out employers with a strong record on diversity, equality, and inclusion. However, the road to greater representation for BAME techpreneurs still needs work to be done.
