More diversity and of course more women in the world of technology. Tim Cook’s has been the penultimate voice to say that “there are no excuses” for the alarming lack of women in the main technology firms.
And it is alarming if we take into account that in one of the last major studies that have been carried out on the subject, published a few months ago by Deloitte, it is pointed out that currently the large technology companies only have an average of 33% representation female in their templates. A percentage that also drops to 25% if only technical positions are taken into account.
In an interview for the BBC on the occasion of the presentation of the App Store Foundations In the United Kingdom, the CEO of Apple has stated in this regard that «the essence of technology and the effect it will have on humanity will depend on how many women are involved. Technology is a great thing that will accomplish many things, but unless there are diverse points of view involved, great solutions will not be developed.”
Cook’s position is far from unique, and in fact, it only adds to the results of more and more studies that indicate that promoting diversity within the company makes that company better; that decisions made and executed by diverse teams deliver better results.
In the same interview, Tim Cook stated that “companies cannot slip away and say that there are not enough women studying computer science and therefore I cannot hire enough women. We have to fundamentally change the number of people taking computer science and programming.” And in this sense, it is true that programs such as the App Store Foundations have among their main objectives the attraction and training of women to develop applications.
But it is also true that despite Tim Cook’s statements, Apple is not, today, a particularly diverse company. As recognized in the internal memory of the American multinational, currently only 35% of Apple employees are women. If we examine its leadership, we find that only five of its 18 top middle managers are women, while only two of the 12 on its board of directors are. Let’s start at home.
