Interview by Vera Fuller
This year’s winner of the Mulert Award, Alexandrea Swanson, is working for the very significant initiative of SheTransformsIT. There she is enabling more women to succeed in IT creating a real impact for our society’s future.
Vera Hi Alex, thanks for joining me! So how did you first get involved with SheTransformsIT?
Alex Hi Vera! In order to answer that question, I have to go back to my Fulbright experience. I came to Germany as a Fulbright ETA in 2014. I always say I went from the middle of America to the middle of Hessen. During my experience at a German school, a lot of the classwork that we did, especially the teaching, was still very… analogue. Not much of it was digital – we were still working with overhead projectors! I remember when I asked my students to make a PowerPoint – they were in eighth grade – and they had never used PowerPoint before. So I think a lot of that motivation to spread the love of digitalization started during my Fulbright experience. That’s what led me to do my master’s degree in politics, economics and philosophy. At that time in 2017/2018, everybody was talking about big data and what data goes into algorithms or large language models. There was always this question of “is this ethically good?” and “are these systems robust?” When I saw the job at SheTransformsIT at the Federation of German Industry, it made perfect sense to go into an area where there’s so much happening. We have a lot of work to do to get more than 17% of women into tech. Essentially I saw room for development and I saw that I could do something that had never been done before.
Vera How did your sense for justice and equality come into the equation?
Alex The female perspective comes in it for multiple reasons. I grew up with a very strong mother. My mom was always in the tech world. My mom was the one who pioneered bringing home a computer. I think it’s so fun whenever I think about what my image of technology is, it’s always very female. I appreciate how in German “die Technologie ist weiblich”– because literally it is feminine. It’s also “die Zukunft ist weiblich”! Both – future and technology – are some of my favorite things. For me this affinity to technology was always a female quality. Whereas when I moved here, I remember a lot of the discussions were, “women can’t do these things”. I’m not saying that we don’t have this in the U.S., but I noticed it was much more prominent here in Germany. This just really bothered me and it definitely struck a nerve. I’ve always been a feminist. I always dealt with the question of “where are the women?”. Now more specifically, I’m dealing with the topic of “where are the women in tech?”. Women in Germany make up 51% of the population, 51%!! How can it be that we are nowhere equal to parity on so many different levels? Our future is digital and if women are not at the table, when it comes to who is regulating AI, who is developing technologies and what perspectives are being put into data systems, we set ourselves back – we have 130 years until parity – we will set ourselves back another 100 years, minimum!!
Vera You mentioned the numbers, which are quite upsetting. I think in our pre-talk, you also said something about just 4% being in leadership.
Alex When it comes to the overall percentage of women in technical areas, only about 17% of all employees are female – and this number stays relatively. Then 56% of women leave after two years in the IT workforce, because they don’t feel accepted or welcome. So when it comes to top leadership, of course it’s lonely up there. Yes, we’ve got about 4% – but interestingly enough, we don’t actually have a lot of numbers, especially in Germany, about who those positions are, where those positions are. So what we do at the initiative is trying to make the few women who are in these positions visible, because we know that this has meaning for other women to see, “ah, there is somebody like me, this is something that I can do”.
Vera What approaches do you take at SheTransformsIT in order to motivate more women?
Alex The first thing I always want to say is, women are not inherently less gifted at anything with regards to STEM fields than men. There are loads of studies that show right before puberty starts, girls and boys are pretty much the same in these areas – equally good at math. Once puberty hits along with many social stereotypes, girls all of a sudden sink in their math grades, boys start to rise up. This obviously demonstrates that women can be just as good at technical jobs as men. So what we do to communicate this positive message consists of three aspects. The first one is transformation – it’s in our name, but what this means is lobby work. We are working directly with the government. We meet with local representatives to talk about the current state of informatics and how computer science lessons in schools can look like. Do girls know what they can do in IT related fields, after completing their diploma? Because often it’s very nebulous what those career paths are. This means working with industry and the schools to make sure that there’s a good connection. When it comes to the federal level, we work with members of the opposition, but also the current administration talking about specific measures – what does the actual plan for more women in IT look like? It is now written in the coalition contract for the first time, which is super exciting!
The second aspect is visibility. We have a couple of campaigns running, where we introduce women on social media, who are working in tech and IT. It is not only helpful for them to showcase what they do, but also for us to have a nice portfolio of women in these fields. Some people say we don’t have the women. Of course, women are there! It’s just a bit harder to find them.
And the last aspect is for women to be networking with other women. They find it very helpful to be in communities where they can talk about their struggles, but also can learn from each other and share experiences. So those are the three things: transformation, visibility, and networking aspects.
Vera That’s really cool! It sounds like after looking at all those gloomy aspects, like the numbers and negative stereotypes, there might be some light on the horizon. How is your outlook on everything in total?
Alex You have to be an optimist to do this! Otherwise I’d go crazy and would want to go live in a basement. I get so much energy and hope from not only conversations like this and from awards, but also from politicians. I remember when we invited the members of the Landtag. Immediate responses! That’s when you know this topic is important and people care about it.
On a personal level it’s through so many conversations: In our interview formats where we get to meet inspiring women I often have to think “this literally is the future”. I do think the country is waking up and I also think the EU is waking up to a lot of these issues, because we know we have this huge labor force gap. Those are the things that give me energy and then seeing so many programs pop-up and also seeing women, who have crazy cool startups. So it’s moving in the right direction.
Vera Oh, that’s so awesome. Do you have any words of advice for an individual woman who really wants to go into IT or anyone really who struggles with the odds, like societal, political, economical odds, that are stacked against them regarding success in IT?
Alex I think getting into IT is probably one of the smartest decisions you can make for your career and for you personally – just due to all the doors that it opens. I don’t want to paint it pretty or easy because a lot of the discussions that I have with women is that a lot of companies say that they’re very open to flexible work models, but they’re actually not. So I think it requires tough skin. I’ve met people, unfortunately, who applied to hundreds of jobs. And if this is something you want: don’t give up. I know that it’s hard. The advice that I can give is: be on LinkedIn, connect with women, connect also with men, who can help you open these doors. And if you need help opening one of those doors, I’d be happy to talk.
Vera: Wow, thank you so much, Alex!
Alexandrea Swanson currently serves as managing director for the #SheTransformsIT initiative at the Federation of German Industries, which aims on getting more women into IT and digitalization. It was during her Fulbright ETA in Germany that she became passionate about digitalization and decreasing the digital gender divide. She currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
Contact via a.swanson@shetransformsit.org