The Hindu Business Line : Climb the career ladder

Women are making their presence felt in all sectors - including information technology. But some help to keep them motivated in their career paths could enrich their contribution to home and society.

That is the spirit behind eWIT, a forum set up to empower women in the technology sector.

"A recent study by STPI (Software Technology Parks of India) among 500 IT companies indicated that the share of women continues to be quite low, across all levels of management, more so at the senior levels even though this is one field that has little gender division. Many talented young women abruptly stop pursuing their career because of various social demands. Considering the boom in the IT industry and acute shortage of qualified people, we felt that we had to do something to bring more women to continue their career," says Rajalakshmi, director, STPI, and President of eWIT.

eWIT was conceptualised by a group of women from various IT and ITES (IT-enabled services) companies and initiated, encouraged and powered by STPI, an autonomous Society under the Ministry of Communication & Information Technology.

Tackling career blocks

eWIT intends to focus on problems that prove to be career blocks, through various projects, training and seminars.

The forum also intends to work with the IT industry to try out creative options that would benefit organisations. These will include features such as part-time options, flexible timings and re-employment opportunities, so as to enable qualified women to continue with their careers.

eWIT seeks to be different from Nasscom, the software consortium. "Nasscom is an industry-wide association for corporates and is not focussed on women alone.

eWIT is going to be managed by a group of working women professionals. While it will have corporate members, the idea is also to encourage individual membership. Right now, it is Chennai-based but the plans are to spread it to smaller towns as well as take it national and perhaps, global one day," says Rajalakshmi.

All women associated with the IT/ITES industry by education or profession anywhere in India or abroad are welcome to become members.

Working to "promote IT as a preferred career choice for women, starting from the college level," the forum believes that the time is not very far when women may choose not to pursue IT-based education if career conditions continue to be very demanding and young women are unequipped to balance personal and professional lives.

eWIT will provide networking opportunities so that women at junior levels can see how others have succeeded.

It will also provide legal counselling and help in areas such as finance counselling, mentoring and stress management, says Rajalakshmi.

For more information, one could look up www.ewit.co.in

paromita@thehindu.co.in

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