Women in Tech: Meet Charlotte Jee, Staff Writer at MIT Technology Review

To celebrate International Women’s Day, we are hosting an exciting event to celebrate all the amazing Women In Tech; whether you’re already working in the industry or you want to join.

We have a panel with some incredible women we think you’ll find insightful and empowering. Meet Charlotte Jee, Staff Writer at MIT Technology Review. MIT Technology Review is a magazine which hopes to bring about better informed and more conscious decisions about technology are shared through thought provoking and trustworthy journalism.

Charlotte has worked in the tech world for virtually her whole career, meaning she has a lot of experience with the diversity and inclusion gap issue in it. It’s one she, and we, are on a mission to close.

Diversity and inclusion within the tech world

Charlotte agrees that it’s important there’s both diversity and inclusion within the tech industry, sharing with us that “It’s just the right thing to do”.

A CIPD report found that 40% of the 1,290 people (white and non-white British) surveyed did not think their company had an inclusive culture. Charlotte explains that by failing to introduce inclusion processes and implementing a more diverse culture “we’re missing out on a huge pool of potential talent, we’re developing worse products, and we’re cutting off a ton of promising people from working in a fascinating sector.”

Inspirations

We were keen to know who Charlotte admired within the industry; who she has looked up to and who has inspired her to continue her dream of working in the tech world.  She named Emer Coleman, a super woman in tech that has mentored Charlotte during her career. Charlotte explains that “She’s worked in so many digital roles in government, the private sector, and charities, even consulting the White House. She’s dynamic, clever, funny, and supports young women, helping to bring the next generation along with her.”

Businesses need to take action

In order to become more inclusive in the workplace, businesses need to take action. Charlotte has experience with blind hiring practices, BAME/Women-only internships and other means to create more diverse teams; this is a great sign that there are businesses that are making steps in the right direction to becoming more inclusive and diverse.

Charlotte believes that more can be done and has shared her hot tips for businesses to take note of: “You need to look at everything – hiring, retention, promotion. Change won’t happen overnight but declaring you want to improve it is a great first step. But it won’t work unless people at the top care about it.”

What can we do?

As individuals, we can be doing more to push businesses and the industry in the right direction. Charlotte encourages everyone to “Pressurise companies to adopt policies that make them more likely to stay – end forced arbitration, work more flexibly (lots of men want this too), improve management culture, implement more pay transparency – treat people like human beings”.

We hope to inspire all individuals, women and men alike, to take the first steps to realise and working towards their career dreams.

We’re on a mission to help change the issues raised and our Women In Tech event is a strong step in the right direction. During this event, we will share more about being an empowered woman in tech, more details surrounding diversity and inclusion and where you can find support as a woman in tech. Interested in joining us? Check out the event details and how we plan to #CloseTheGap.

Meet the rest of our panel

Joining Charlotte on the panel, we have:

Alisha Dattani, founder and CEO of FMXA

Niamh Power, Mobile Engineer at Monzo

Sanchita Saha, CEO & founder of Shello

Rachael Grocott, Product Designer at Geckoboard and co-founder of Triangirls