Women in MACH: Diversity in tech comes under spotlight

Inspirational discussions backed by new scoring tool place diversity, equality, inclusion and belonging firmly on the roadmap of tech companies

The Women in MACH conference, hosted last week in London by the non-profit technology advocacy group the MACH Alliance, and sponsored by ad agency conglomerate WPP, put a lack of diversity in the tech industry under the spotlight. 

The Alliance, which champions the use of microservices, application programming interfaces, cloud native and headless (MACH) technologies for building agile and flexible technology architectures, highlighted how only 28% of the US tech workforce and 22% in Europe are female. 

However, despite a lack of gender-based diversity, many tech companies have scaled back their efforts to increase diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) within their workforces. Microsoft, for example, recently laid off its entire internal DEI team, reportedly citing “changing business needs” as the reason for the cuts, according to Business Insider. 

In fact, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also last week released a report that found female, Black and Hispanic workers remain underrepresented in the high tech workforce. This in spite of the fact that McKinsey research suggests more diverse workforces create more profitable companies. 

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The second annual Women in MACH event provided an opportunity for DEI advocates and allies, as well those participating in the second year of the mentorship programme the MACH Alliance sponsors, the chance to meet, network and recruit new mentorship members.

“This is such an important initiative,” said Jasmin Guthmann, executive board member of the MACH Alliance and sponsor of Women in MACH, of the mentorship programme. “Sometimes all you need is to meet somebody who believes in you or sees something in you that you don't see at the moment.”

The event also featured discussions with Debbie Ellison, global chief digital officer for the WPP creative agency VML, Christelle Dexet, director of field and partner Marketing for search-as-a-service platform Algolia, and Todd Harris, senior vice president of global strategic alliances for IT consultancy Valtech, all of whom were representing their MACH Alliance member companies. 

Ellison shared her experience of rising through the ranks with attendees back when very few girls were studying computing during an interview with Guthmann. She added that, today: “As a leader, I try to make it my goal and my ambition to help protect women to thrive and grow."

Harris took part in a panel discussion about systemic bias and shared his advice in a LinkedIn post afterwards: “You belong. You’re in the room for a reason.” He also suggested: “Find a cheerleader and someone who will advocate for you.” 

Women in AI

While the event agenda was designed to cater to those looking to further their tech careers or support those looking to do so, a roundtable hosted by enterprise search provider Coveo also examined why women are critical for the future of artificial intelligence (AI) under Chatham House rules.

The AI discussion focused on the need for more 'cognitive diversity' in datasets used to develop and train AI algorithms and learning models. Pregnant women are not included in medical trials as one example, while an attendee commented: “AI tools are only as good as the data you feed them.” 

The discussion also revealed that AI bias should also be tackled at the debugging and quality assurance stages of development. “Trying to solve issues of unconscious bias at the output level isn’t enough,” added one of Coveo’s roundtable hosts. 

Here, it emerged that having a clear understanding of user intent can help ensure inputs and rules could produce outputs representative of diverse sets of users, while ethics and regulation have a key role to play in ensuring AI tools reflect the needs of all users. 

Measuring DEI effectiveness

Finally, The MACH Alliance used the event to unveil a new scoring tool to promote diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) within the tech industry. 

Developed and unveiled by Dr. Rabea Tamm, senior DEIB director at MACH Alliance member organisation commercetools, the tool has been designed to provide a straightforward and actionable way to assess a company’s efforts in these areas while sharing successful strategies and best practices. 

“Launching a simple yet powerful tool to advance efforts around DEIB has been our overall goal in developing the DEIB score,” stated Tamm. “I am convinced that the tool will provide clear guidance on the next step for any organisation on their journey towards more equity. Offering it for free for MACH Alliance member companies is our contribution to pushing for broad progress.”

Every company entering their information in the DEIB tool will receive a maturity assessment and a DEIB Playbook. “When looking at the existing DEIB tools, we were underwhelmed. The expensive ones didn’t deliver enough value, and the free tools were weak. We didn’t want to wait for change – we rolled up our sleeves and built our own,” added Guthmann.

Holly Hall, managing director of the MACH Alliance, concluded: “I am incredibly excited about making the DEIB scoring tool available to our members for free. Diversity, equity and inclusion are at the heart of the MACH Alliance’s mission. We all want to live in a world that provides equal opportunity to all, and the DEIB scoring tool will help companies get there.”