 Hello one So I'm Esther. I'm aware of better torch box and torch box for those who don't know is a digital agency creating web application and Website digital marketing strategy and we also create a cool thing Chimmas for Django I call it Wacktail And yeah, I'm also one of the organizer back in italia and the one of the strawberry graphical quarter. Oh Yeah, I should mention that we are hiring Python developers a Worldwide and in Brazil and we have also other position open so to online if you are looking Yeah, today I want to tell you a little story So I was in Florence last year and with a friend one of my friends Sabrina and we went to a bookshop and She's just made me a very interesting reading invisible woman Exposing at a bias in a world designed for men but written by Carolyn parents a very good reading my opinion that This talk basically talk about Gender by how gender bias effect in the use of data in our society Helper education employment, etc. So Yeah, spoiler. We still have a little bit to do to fix gender gap But today I don't want to talk about the book itself But just about a particular chapter chapter 4 that talks about the tech industry so our industry and I was particularly surprised and shocked to know that during the 40 and 50 Women not men where the dominance sex in programming so the opposite of what we had today and of course like many of you I think I I really see the picture on Books and all this woman working on computer a lot of cables black and white But I never truly realized how many of them so they they wear the majority So much there were there were pictures In magazine like Cosmopolitan to encourage a woman to apply it for jobs So a typically more feminine magazine So my question was how that is possible? How do we get to from that situation to what we have today that we are struggling so much to fix gender gap and increasing woman participation in in tech so First we have to think about the historical reasons reasons So during the second world Men were colored to arm and many women work in technical roles Including operating some early computer like in yuck in the US and Colossus in the UK those experience paved the way for women to continue to work in Technical roles also after the world and the second reason is that the perception of Programming was different in the early day of computer programming was thought to be like more a Woman thing because and was less prestige under the hardware engineering because Harder engineering was considered only a heavily dominated male field But programming was conceived more like a clerical work So typing feeling that were traditionally more female dominated fee roles So this perception made it acceptable for the society to For woman to work in technical field and continue So there was already a gender gap that lead to underestimated the women works and The term programming was not yet mainstream So there were many assumptions around it well about what it mean and in fact route the Leecherman one of the girl that Worked at in yuck in an interview was starting to clarify it and Basically here the interviewing is assuming that programming will just relange the cables and Actually route stop him and start to say no is actually more than that is about taking pain and paper start to do diagrams and When there was when the software were big there were women specify in only a part a portion of the software and Only after all these steps then Start to program me or in this case plug-in in the cables so That sounds a bit familiar to me, but I don't know why So we have to consider that there were no programming languages no operating system at the time No best practicing guidelines textbooks. So forget so in principle forget design patterns Every programming technique must be evaluated and work it out for for the first time and these women at India made a lot of innovation in fact And invent this on programming techniques like Betty Hobart on event of a special technique that involved Stop the machine in the middle of the program and look for the partial result So yeah, when the next time you are debugging and you're struggling and think about fair and say thank you Betty Yeah to continue our story so the computer became commercial at the end of the 50 and companies like ebm start to sell them massively and Companies with they brand new computer new programmers to start building the the custom software and Good programmers were hard to find because nobody know how to program yet. So this is when the first software crisis was declared and and Companies and industry and start to use some up to put test and personality profile to have under evaluate the candidates So the potential programmers because nobody know how to program yet. So there was a brand new team thing and the company has to Evaluate the potential good employees and then train them. So was a huge huge investment So they start to look at those skill that they thought that was the they would have lead that will be successful in programming so The underlying assumption is that there were some innate qualities that will be correlated with good programming performance So this test aim to evaluate a specific skill like a verb a meaning Reasoning and emotional stability The test usually involved Identify synonyms Completing number serious answering questions related to personality traits or a mix Mathematical trivia logic puzzle and war games So they were already widely criticized Study proved that there were no significant correlation between the test scores and The subsequent job performance and they were already what the criticize they start to make jokes of them But here is the important thing is some beliefs came out from this personality profile some way are things like Their belief of a relationship between programming and musical ability. Why not So and other stuff like for most of the time programmers enjoy their work dislike routine and They were particularly interested in proven solving and they disinterested in people Programmers dislike activities involving close partial interaction. They prefer work on things rather than with people so This personality profiles formalized the stereotype that we all know a male Typically, where you're hoodie always wearing a hoodie the spend all this time behind a computer which may not Leave much time for socializing So unfortunately these stereotypes has discouraged woman from pursuing programmer careers and Because they feel that it must be obsessed with the computers and work on with them all the time to be so to be successful in programming So as a result of from the 90s the women participation in tech start to decrease both in occupation and in computer science Moreover males were more likely to have a computer at home because maybe someone gives them and they play with it and they looks more confident with it and Skilled and this was reinforcing the stereotype that women were less capable of programming So these stereotypes and bias continue to affect the tech industry today Leading lack of diversity and inclusion in the tech theme so addressing those biases is important is important to interrupt them and Take action to build a more inclusive and Diverse industry There are several factors that contribute to gender bias One is unconscious bias. So from when we are young We get our culture base mental models for obvious system people on the world these Schemas help us to navigate the world But sometimes that lead to unconscious bias causing us to miss some strengths and characteristics In people that don't fit for our mental image of a good leader or a good technical person looks like Implicit bias are not a lot of the human Psychology and we all have and some degrees the important is to recognize them and start to interrupt them gender biases for example a Woman may be characterized are too aggressive why the same behavior is a socially acceptable for a man and Sometimes even encourage These bias influence promotion and hiring the decision. So resulting disparate in compensation is estimated that the globally Women are paid 20% less compared to males and this data is even worse if we consider people of color This means that women work for free two Yeah, two months a year so Gender bias can create hostel work environment make it difficult for women to continue in their careers and make it this problem even worst Another thing so we have to consider The the platform the software that we use because some years ago was found out at LinkedIn we're suggesting more male candidates than female candidates and They later hired a diversity team that should have fixed this problem some degrees but the algorithm still have some kind of bias in their functions and This platform are not open source. So we don't know how the algorithm how they are coded and we rely only on independent studies And Moreover recently there was with all of the layoff going on in the industry that can be I hope not Of course that this diversity team may be reduced and the consequences will know only one is too late. I hope not Now let's see that how meritocratic system can ironically perpetuate gender bias and in the in the industry was find out by study the one companies Emphatize meritocracy in their core values men were often more higher bonuses than women with equivalent performance This is because meritocratic system devaluation of the performance often based on personal judgment and assumption that can be influenced by gender biases So this study highlights the importance of be aware of the consequences of meritocracy And they need to establish a truly and fair objective evaluation of the performance and promotion and Company should reflect very well on their core values because they aren't just logon Or motors, but they influence the entire organization So there are many example that I couldn't talk about and I think the most famous one are that in recent years there was a concern about the algorithm that they recognized The face of people because was failing on was failing on people of color with that is killed and Was find out that the algorithm was not trained enough on those minorities and under example we have found out that some The trackers are the health trackers are less effective on women and people of color so This lack of the diversity in the tech industry had lead to Less problem-solving and less innovation and this is not a problem from attacking self for the tech industry Self, but is a problem. It's became a problem from the world society Implicit bias are natural of the human behavior and we have them we will have them The important is to interrupt but it's not about blaming people But rather working together to create a more inclusive and diverse tech industry so, yeah, I I should already Convince you that is important but Exclusion is not a low priority or the night to have is a must and The comf and if it's not enough Even the profitability of the company will benefit from having a diverse team Because it brings innovation have to better understand the client from different perspective So we have to fix this problem as soon as possible because Discriminate these people is just wrong and it's not acceptable any any more to continue to perpetuate these behaviors in 2023 I Want to give you an example If you're not convinced it enough Okay This is Diana Tamina. She is a brilliant mathematician and his skills help to Solve a question that was going on for centuries How to draw the hyperbolic plane and this is an example how to combining the skill will help Will end up in the innovation? mathematician could not solve this problem for century and This sure reminds us that innovation Many times came out from mixing the different skin perspective and experience and disciplines So Houston we have a problem How can when how can we fix and practice? First start from the job description words there are Consider more masculine woman tend to believe that I don't belong to this position and find a job less appealing so develop a job advertisement that is Muscle with without masculine gender words for example competitive assertive ambitious and Track of these good lines are followed Some researchers are shown that Women are less likely to apply to a job if they don't meet 100% of the qualification Instead men they will apply even if they only meet some of the qualification and That's can contribute your gender gap in the application put To address this We should consider to review a world longer nice to have a list of qualification and keep only That are meaningful and important from the job because that's can discourage some good talent woman to apply and this is little real that I found very funny on Instagram and Nope wrong button Five years experience with Excel. I only have four years in three months Well, I heard of Excel ten years ago. That's basically ten years experience Attention to detail. I did make a typo last year. I always know when my mom moves my stuff Great communicator. I've been working on my communications used in therapy. Yeah, I talk good works Well with others they're gonna find out I had a friendship ruined over a project in fifth grade Others love me startup environment. Oh, I hate playing ping-pong startups. No HR Yeah, that's is exactly the problem Okay, and then the hiring process start to give in managers Blind resume so remove all the personal detail of the applicant name gender date of birth picture all the stuff and truck if this changes change the hiring number Use a structure interview process and define some set of question to us to all the candidate to assure a more fairness and consistency and Provide unconscious by a training to hiring manager regularly Encourage STEM education for young girls is very very important to increase one more participation in tech and in enforce that there is There is more than one way to be interested in computer science. We don't have to Be obsessed with the computer. We don't have to conform to the boyhockey stereotype to be good and appreciate the field Representation our role model and mentors play a crucial role in inspiring us and guiding people in their life in their career and one of the key notar of bike in italia had an entire talk of power about the power representation and Here there is the link of my land talk and if you're interested in the topic put in your watch later YouTube list Mentorship program are a beautiful example how to increase woman participation. So they find some position that don't require an Experience before and for example at Torchbow We have the Torchbow Academy when we take you new developer without experience Order is the Google Google summer of code for example This allow people want for example to switch career or so to start And it's a good way to find new talent So preaching the diversity is not enough We have to create a safe and supportive work environment where everyone regarding the background or identity Feel valued and included and heard To achieve this we need to build a culture of open communication and feedbacks Everyone should feel comfortable speaking up bringing new ideas and Or report issue when they happen without the fear of backslash Ensure there are procedures in place to report where something bad happens Is not enough to list just listen we must also to act so when issue like Harassment happen or discrimination occur We should not look on the other way just because the people involved are strategic in the organization but instead we have to have like procedure in place talk with HR and To address this problem do the training and be sure that it doesn't happen again So an inclusive workplace is more than just a diverse Workplace is a place where everyone feels safe heard and respected and When we build such a workplace we force the best a better idea and a stronger environment and I talk about Workplace culture and at Picon Italia is another 30-minute talk and I have only two minutes left So if you are interested in continue this topic This is the video and we will upload soon. This is the streaming and Marco over there will upload the video later, but we are enjoying the conference So we didn't have too much time to split them them But they will be there soon um Resource some resources that they use it While I was researching for this topic and other resources and That's what it was it the slide are available on discord and On my website this link Thank you We will not have five minutes of Q&A. Please use the microphones to ask questions Yeah, my first question is somebody has a thing to open the bottle Next question Hi, thank you for the talk. I just want to ask you a bit more About the Torchbox Academy program that you mentioned. Yeah, and how do you select people for that to ensure that? You're not just taking those with the most advantage. You're ready to apply who perhaps can present our applications Better and things like that. I'm not involved in the organization on the program because I've been there only for five months There is a day where we bring all the application at the office and they will do workshops We will do some talks as well We'll tell them the whole thing and then they will do a task I'm pretty sure And then we will evaluate base on On them performance basically so you bring everyone who applies to the office first. Yeah, that's really good. Thank you very much to talk as well Hello Thank you so much for the talk that was pretty interesting and pretty much confirmed what I have been talking about since University with assumptions one point is Something I noticed from since I started programming in school with like 15 and I'm trying to apply to University to jobs and now as an adult applying to jobs is One expectation that I meet explicitly and implicitly all the time is did you have some private projects? What did you do in your private? Are you always reading these tech magazines and I sit down think sorry, that's my free time Do you have and I and yes sometimes I do but even then what I do has nothing to do with what I do in work Like I love embedded systems and that's what I do in private time and I'm a Python developer in the back end So do you have a child an idea how to raise awareness in the people hiring and being the team leads that Well, that is a cool thing to have and to do It has nothing to do if the person will be a good programmer for you Especially not in the very beginning when you're hiring juniors from University Yeah Okay, the question will be long can you Do you have a chance how to raise awareness for the fact that? This exists and it doesn't mean the person has a worse programmer. It just means it's not their hobby Yeah, yes, I think one company want to look here and see some side project if you have that is fine, but they should offer an alternative and Ken Doesn't have to be some some code specifically Maybe just talk about your passion, but it's not about the job So I'm I agree to you that doesn't matter I would like that them will understand that it doesn't matter And it's kind of challenge. I hope that we'll watch my video Hi When talking about gender bias in tech in work I've had previous issues where people maybe don't understand like at a fundamental level like the gender pay gap Or like alternatively like anecdotal evidence of saying, oh, well, I've never had an issue being a woman in tech so Yeah So how would you recommend talking about those issues in an informal way in work? Especially without mansplaining It's a tricky way because when someone has a strong Believe it's hard to convince that actually the reality is is is not in that way Because if you didn't he didn't happen to you doesn't matter that is not true that is not happening and Maybe pink The bring this topic from time to time Hey look at this school I Article or something or Sometimes even in the news. I mean recently in Italy. There was kind of Arrasment issue and Agency so if if you know something that it happened it can be a good way to start the conversation Look, this is real and Stand from there Thank you, sir. Unfortunately, we don't have more time for Questions here, but please talk to Esther after the talk. Thank you so much. Thank you Esther. Thank you folks from this