Women leading tech and learning from each other

Brigitte Barta Headshot

This article was originally published in B&T.

Brigitte Barta (main photo) is the digital content manager and strategist at Icon Agency. Barta was also nominated at B&T’s recent Women Leading Tech Awards. In this guest post, Barta offers her own tips and experiences in working in the tech space on how to make the industry a more inclusive and positive career for all women…

One of the key recommendations of Deloitte’s 2021 Digital Pulse report was that more women need to be encouraged to join and stay in the tech industry. According to the report, women make up 29 per cent of employment in technology in Australia and, based on current trends, it would take 66 years for technology occupations to reach anything like 50 per cent female participation. The report makes the case that hastening this trend by half would add $11 billion to Australia’s economy. While achieving balance does not appear to be a priority for the government or the corporate sector, there are reasons to be optimistic.

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to attend B&T’s Women Leading Tech Awards as a nominee. It was a glamorous affair indeed, and at first I felt decidedly underdressed in my red velvet frock, when clearly sequins were called for.

The fact I was there was surprising for a number of reasons – not just because it was a novelty to be travelling interstate after two years of border closures. I was also shortlisted in the design category, for work within a budding but under-recognised area: content design.

Content strategists/designers and information architects are like the librarians or editors of the digital world. We beaver away in quiet corners and our work is only noticed if we aren’t doing it well. I was gratified to be acknowledged but certainly didn’t expect to win, and I didn’t – which was frankly a huge relief as I hadn’t prepared a speech.

But mostly I was amazed by the way the night panned out. Read more here.