At the initiative of Betclic, as part of their “Diversity Week”, I was able to participate in a round table (without a table) with Amélie Benoit (Women in Tech Bordeaux) and Benoit Merel (CTO Betclic), organized by Emmanuelle Le Guennec (Betclic) on the place of women in tech. Each of us was able to answer questions from Raphaëlle Orenbuch on the current state and the measures being implemented at their level. Amélie Benoit (a former student of ENSEIRB-MATMECA Informatique) gave a striking (and uncompromising) assessment of the place of women in tech by highlighting studies from her association “Women in Tech” on the various existing barriers.
On his side, Benoit Merel presented the different initiatives at Betclic to help reverse the trend. As for me, I was able to present the actions we are implementing at ENSEIRB-MATMECA around the feminization of courses. It is an extremely important subject for the school and we have initiated a series of actions to address this situation, even though it stems from years of stereotypes in the education of young women. The school is very active upstream of studies (High Schools, Colleges) to show that no, being an engineer (in computer science) is not a question of men. What I defended in this round table is, moreover, not to place the responsibility for this observation on previous studies (“we have 20% of girls in preparatory classes, we can’t do anything, we find the same percentage in our schools”). Schools must also act and change habits. This is what we are doing at ENSEIRB-MATMECA.
As highlighted by the Fondation Blaise Pascal, in which I am one of the regional correspondents, the lack of diversity in scientific courses, and more particularly in computer science, is an important issue in more ways than one. We absolutely must, at all levels, do our best to reverse the trend. We cannot do without 50% of the population when computer science, through its tools, builds the world of tomorrow. We cannot do without 50% of the population when aiming for the best skills.
A fascinating subject, without simple answers, but one that policies should take up.