Addressing gender inequalities in IT: UK and India

Impact

The reports were published as NASSCOM co-badged outputs and offered to industry partners through its publication portal. NASSCOM’s Diversity and Inclusion arm immediately responded to the WITS findings on the sector’s shortcomings with the Women Wizards Rule Tech (W2RT) programme. This introduces women to future and emerging technologies to support women’s career retention and progression within the sector. W2RT has reached over 4,500 women from 100 companies since it was developed and piloted in 2018. The programme has contributed to the continued personal and professional development of the participants.

International organisations have used insights from WITS to challenge conventional understanding of the barriers to women’s entry into IT professions and offered best practice on how to address the problem. For example, a DFID-funded report entitled Gender Inclusion in Hiring in India recommended companies use more gender-balanced forms of recruitment (offline instead of online), directly citing findings from the WITS report. Similarly, the McKinsey Global Institute’s The Power of Parity report targeting Asian businesses and national stakeholders cites the WITS report in its recommendation of targeted support for women when they become mothers to raise retention and enhance their career progression.