As a lobbyist at the European Parliament at the ITRE committee I contribute with draft proposals. Abstract: In a few years there will be a shortage of 1 million employable ICT people in the EU-zone. Therefore, it is not viable for Europe to not make an effort to increase the number of women in ICT since they are 50 % of the work force. To achieve this aim, it is necessary for EU and its partners to sponsor activities that increases women to pursue a career in ICT. Examples on these are sponsoring business incubators and creating employment pools.

1. Jan Softa CEO of Somerco Research Ltd
Enhance EC member states competitiveness in R & D
- Part 3: Actions to support women in ICT
Abstract: In a few years there will be a shortage of 1 million employable ICT people in the EU-zone.
Therefore, it is not viable for Europe to not make an effort to increase the number of women in ICT
since they are 50 % of the work force. To achieve this aim, it is necessary for EU and its partners to
sponsor activities that increases women to pursue a career in ICT. Examples on these are sponsoring
business incubators and creating employment pools.
Introduction
Helping geniuses! Our slogan sums up who Somerco aims to help. Somerco are a
company that target to help researchers and innovators so that these geniuses can
create prosperity and jobs in society. In order to achieve this aim, it is important to
also help governmental officials in international and national governmental agencies
as well as professional networks. In this paper, I discuss a couple of actions that will
support women in ICT. The topics discussed are cooperation, making contact,
employment pools, sponsoring and organisation.
Background
In the hearing on women in ICT it was concluded it is not viable for Europe to not
make an effort to increase the number of women in ICT since they are 50 % of the
work force. In particular, since in a few years there will be a shortage of 1 million
employable people in the ICT sector. It was mentioned that in secondary school
young women are interested in ICT. However, very few of these women choose to
study computer sciences at university. Therefore, it is important to have and support
role models in order to increase women’s interest for a future career in ICT. I also
discuss the importance of targeting women in the middle of their career and to get
them interested in making a career change into the ICT sector. It has many advantages
to target this group since they understand what is expected of them in a work place.
Perhaps it is these women who will become the sought after role models.1
Cooperation
EU already has important contacts with women networks in ICT who provide industry
knowledge. These networks will function as a hub for increasing women in ICT. Both
EU and these networks are cooperating and should increase its cooperation with the
private sector. The obvious reason is that these ICT companies will be women’s
future employers. Therefore, it is important to get on board as many large companies
as possible such as Deutsche Telekom, Intel and Polkomtel, but just as important is to
get SMEs in ICT on board because they are the largest growth sector in ICT.
Moreover, computer programmers are hired in many other sectors such as the finance
sector, governmental agencies and the chemical industry. Therefore, cooperation is
also important with the employers in these sectors. All these different types of
companies should be targeted by EU and the women networks in order to have a
1
Women in ICT in the developing world will be discussed in part 4 of Enhance EC member states
competitiveness in R & D.

2. Jan Softa CEO of Somerco Research Ltd
broad partnership base. Besides this, the company partners can all contribute with
knowledge or sponsoring.
Make contact
There are multiple ways for EU and its partners to communicate a message to both
young women and women in the middle of their careers. It is important to use the
right forum for each group. Some of the more traditional ones include career fairs and
professional networks. Other forums I want to point out are the use of social media,
business incubators and sponsoring of spare-time activities such as sport and art.
Career fairs – When EU and its partners participate at career fairs you are in contact
with women who are actively seeking new career opportunities. Therefore, to
participate at career fairs are important in order to help women in ICT. It is also an
opportunity to plant a seed in the women not yet in this sector by discussing what
opportunities there are in ICT.
Professional networks – It is important for EU to cooperate and use professional
networks for women in ICT, such as WITEC, because of their high competence in the
field. These groups will lobby with companies, arrange and meet potential young
women in school and at universities. I also believe it would be beneficial if these
professional networks figured out what other types of networks women are part of in
order to ask to come and meet them and present how it is to work in the ICT sector.
Social media – Nowadays, social media is a part of almost every young woman’s
daily life and also to increasing extent women in the middle of their career. To use
these tools are essential when it concern communicating to young women. I suggest
that women who have a large following on blogs and twitter are contacted in order to
ask if it is possible to send them information that is easy for them to spread in this
format. Meaning women with a large following on twitter should get info from EU
that does not have more than 140 characters so it instantly can be used on twitter. For
blogs you send a little more info because this format allows more than 140 characters.
It is important to support the women who are writing about science, innovation and
ICT. However, contact also other women who focus on other topics such as fashion,
music and other art or who write about their daily life. After all, the purpose is to
reach into a new audience. Other Internet sites that can be used are Justin.tv and
Ustream where you can live stream events for free and it is also fairly easy to
integrate their TV solutions into your own website. Youtube and Vimeo are good for
putting up information videos. Social networks that could be used are Xing, Viadeo,
Myspace or Facebook.
Business incubator – I believe that business incubators can play an important role
when it concern getting women interested in commercializing their ideas into web
applications, to start-up a software company or develop the ones they have. If EU and
their future partners can allocate money that enables business incubators to meet
women that currently are interested in commercializing ideas in ICT it would boost
economy and also create role models. Great business ideas you find everywhere so to
have a wide focus on women in secondary school, universities, those already in ICT
companies and outside of ICT companies are beneficial.
Spare-time activities – To sponsor spare-time activities are in particular suitable for
contacting women in the middle of their career. Many women in the middle of their
career have children and to sponsor their children’s science interest, sport or art
activities gives EU and its partners access to them in a new forum. As an example:
Why not sponsor their children’s football team and in return get the option to meet the
parents when they play a match? Another option could be to hand out information

3. Jan Softa CEO of Somerco Research Ltd
about ICT companies during their children’s music concerts and theatre plays. This
contact forum has the advantage to embrace both women in ICT and those currently
outside of this sector.
Employment pools.
When these women been contacted and have decided to pursue a career in ICT it
should be easy for women networks to keep-in touch with them in order to give
support. Therefore, I believe it will benefit many to set-up employment pools with
women interested in working in the ICT field. These can be divided into an
employee/manager pool and an executive pool. The employee/manager pool can to
start with have a more national approach, while the executive pool could be more
international.
The employee/manager pool is for those women with a sufficient knowledge of
computer programming and those who are currently in the programs and courses EU
sponsors. The executive pool should consist of suitable women candidates with
different professionals backgrounds that would fit into ICT companies’ boards, as
potential CTOs, CFOs, CIOs or CEOs. When it concern this pool it is important to
remember that the requirements are different depending on what size the company are
operating in. It should mean many women qualify for this pool. Also relevant is what
target group the ICT companies have – does the company have its market with
industry or private consumers. An example: A women who have worked in the
finance sector in an executive role could be a suitable candidate as a CFO or CEO for
an ICT company especially if the companies’ customers are in the finance sector.
I think an employment pool could develop into a service that would be well received
by both women who want to have a career in ICT, headhunters and their future
employers.
Sponsoring
Besides giving funding, EUs contacts with national ministries and agencies are an
important factor for EU to have a leading role. By being involved and lifting the issue
to the forefront it gives weight to the importance of sponsoring this cause.
The sponsoring efforts could be divided into (a) making contact, (b) supporting
business incubators, (c) have interns at ICT companies and (d) to help in education.
Above I have already discussed how EU and its partners could make contact with
women more in detail so I briefly mention that sufficient funds need to be allocated
for those people who have this as their work task.
To give sponsoring to business incubators is a way to increase women in the business
side of running ICT companies. The European Business and Innovation Centre
Network can work as an instrument that enthusiasm woman with business ideas in
ICT by giving advice and support to them. As mentioned, EU have connections with
important potential partners such as UKs Department for Business Innovation and
Skills and the international Innova. EU can work to affect these in this cause. They
can in their turn work with other business incubators with the same objective to get
women interested in commercializing their ICT ideas. The business incubators should
actively seek women already in ICT, at secondary school and universities in order to
discuss the business side of running ICT companies.
Beside, sponsoring business incubators I believe it would be beneficial to sponsor
women interns at large and small ICT companies. Especially for SMEs it will be a
valuable financial support and experience.

4. Jan Softa CEO of Somerco Research Ltd
To increase the number of women computer programmers does not necessarily mean
they need to enter university or be taught by computer teachers at school. Another
option is to use the private sector. There is the traditional approach to sponsor courses
run by ICT companies such as IBM. These courses are suitable for women who have
progressed a bit into their computer programming career.
Another option is to sponsor spare-time workers for those people who currently work
in ICT companies such as Nokia, Telekom Italia, Xing, Cisco, Adobe, Facebook,
internet security companies like AVG and Norton. These people have both up to date
knowledge and can teach women who want to pursue a career in ICT. To offer
sponsoring of internship, let private companies offer their ICT courses and to get the
workers in these companies to do spare-time work will give knowledge about these
companies’ products and services that are used by clients on the market. A bonus is
that they get a reference in the industry. A benefit with these approaches it is more
likely they either become employed by these companies or start their own companies
with knowledge of these services and products. All these efforts should be available to
give women in different stages of their career. Young women in secondary school
who are interested in ICT, women at universities who major in computer science, but
also those who study subjects such as physics, math or art and finally women in the
middle of their career who are interested in a career change can prove to become a hit.
Organisation
EU has already contacts with nation’s ministries, their governmental agencies and
networks that can be used for channelling funding into these nations. When it
concerns EUs cooperation with the private sector another organisational solution can
be used.
I believe it is beneficial to use charity organisations in order to collect funding from
the private sector. It is unclear to me whether EUs regulations enables EU its selves to
run charity organisations. Otherwise they should map out what suitable charity
organizations there are for this purpose and officially back them. In many countries,
there are tax benefits that are favourable for companies who donate money. This type
of organisational solution makes it possible to give larger donations. Another benefit
is it becomes easier for more companies than the large to contribute. Often SMEs are
in-facto profitable but most of their profit goes to re-investments for their expansion.
Compared to large companies it is more difficult for them to donate money if it
cannot benefit their overall business.