Attitudes towards women in technology are changing rapidly, claims CWIT

More than 200 women working in the technology space converged in Dublin this morning for a Connecting Women in Technology (CWIT) breakfast briefing to network and share ideas about female entrepreneurship in the sector.

The idea of the event was to enable networking, encourage entrepreneurship and to inspire women to move into more senior positions in their companies.

CWIT itself is a collaborative initiative that was set up in 2009 by senior women from Ernst & Young, HP, Microsoft, Accenture, Google, Facebook, Dell and IBM.

Marie Treacy, partner at Ernst & Young, hosted this morning’s event at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin. She spoke about how attitudes are changing for women in technology in Ireland.

“Attitudes towards women in technology are changing rapidly and female participation continues to increase in this sector,” said Treacy.

Welcoming Enterprise Ireland’s recent setting up of a Competitive Feasibility Fund for high-potential start-ups led by females, she said more still needs to happen via education, policy and collaboration to increase the amount of export-oriented business being set up by females.

Other speakers at this morning’s event were Triona Campbell, founder and director of the digital studio and transmedia company beActive International. She spoke about how it was inspiring to see so many women in technology networking.

“Technology plays a key role in the Irish economy and there are an increasing number of opportunities for women,” said Campbell.

She also spoke about countries such as the US and Australia, which have taken measures to increase levels of entrepreneurial activity among women and how it would be an opportunity to study how these countries went about it.

“Ireland may be able to learn from their experience,” said Campbell.

Other speakers this morning included Regina Moran, CEO of Fujitsu Ireland, and Frank O’Keeffe from Ernst & Young.