Every February 11 we celebrate International Day of Girls and Women in Science and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). As a technology company, Smartmatic benefit greatly from the invaluable contributions that women bring to the election industry. We also support outreach to young women still finding their way through school and searching for a career path that suits them.
For decades young girls saw only men in STEM careers. Today, female employees at STEM companies like Smartmatic serve as role models for girls who may be interested in STEM careers. This is important, but it’s perhaps more important to see women in leadership roles at those companies. In our company some of key positions are managed by women.
Further, there are even fewer women of color in STEM careers and in the STEM educational pipeline. It’s an area of particular focus for Smartmatic, and overall the numbers studying in these fields is increasing. According to the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), the number of non-Caucasian women obtaining post-secondary degrees in Computer & Information Science more than doubled between 2016 and 2020 to nearly 10,000. That’s great progress. But in 2021, women overall still comprised only 26% of the computing workforce, and just 12% were women of color. There is still much progress yet to be made.
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Why are STEM careers important?
Smartmatic female employees believe in the power of engineering, voting technology and STEM careers to change the societies worldwide, giving the voters the tools to participate in their democracies. Women at Smartmatic are working in elections in five continents, participating in technological activities with colleagues of different cultures, gender, and point of views. You can read about some of these folks here and learn their views on the value women bring to tech fields and elections in particular.
The more accurately career fields reflect the composition of the population, the more the products and services those fields will address the population’s wants and needs. Elections are all about giving voice to the people. Thus, the industries that support elections should look like those people.
