Today marks International Women’s Day — a time to celebrate women across the world while also reflecting on the steps we must take to reduce the inequities women face.
First and foremost, I would like to extend a huge thank you to all the women who are a part of the SingleStore team. Your brilliance, dedication and hard work are critical to SingleStore thriving, and I am grateful to each and every one of you. Thank you.
While this International Women’s Day (IWD) is a time for celebration, I believe it must also be a time to reflect on the ways we can create a better world for women. That’s why I’m thrilled that the theme for this year’s IWD is #EmbraceEquity.
There’s an important distinction between equity and equality — while equality refers to ensuring everyone has equal access to resources and opportunities, equity “recognizes that each person has different circumstances, and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.”
In a nutshell, equity is about seeing where systemic gaps lay and acting to eliminate them. We know that the tech industry is rife with significant gender gaps — women only make up 27% of the workforce in STEM careers. A pay gap also exists — the median earnings of women in STEM jobs are approximately 74% of men’s median earnings in the same fields. Unfortunately, this pay gap in STEM careers is even wider than the gender pay gap in the broader labor market.
These statistics are a result of biases and structures that deter women from pursuing STEM careers – and we see these everywhere. Gaps begin in education, where stereotypes about “women’s work” encourage girls to shift away from math and science. As a father of two daughters, I’ve noticed this tendency firsthand. My wife and I have worked hard to ensure that our girls know that they have the right and ability to excel in any any field they’re interested in. We know this is important, because when young women are discouraged from studying STEM, it leads to work environments that are male dominated and creates underrepresentation of women in tech. And thus, a vicious cycle continues.
I wholeheartedly believe we can reverse these trends and design a more equitable future. This is especially important in tech, as we are building solutions to change the world. Tech itself will be more powerful and transformative when creators are more diverse and design it with a lens of equity and inclusion.
I am committed to implementing pathways to further equity for women and other underrepresented groups in STEM at SingleStore. I am proud to say that this fiscal year, SingleStore's DEI Alliance will be focused on finding organizations within the non-profit space that we can invest in and partner with to further the inclusion of women and non-binary talent in tech. My family and I believe that making an investment of time and money in underserved communities is a responsibility and privilege, and I encourage my network to view it with the same lens.
I am excited to announce that SingleStore will also be hosting a collaborative panel with industry leaders on how the rise of AI and automation will impact equity and justice. The panel will convene on March 27th and be streamed on LinkedIn Live. Panelists include:
- Nashlie Sephus, PH.D., Principal AI/ML Specialist AWS
- Maritza Johnson, Director for the Center of Data Science, AI, and Society at the University of San Diego
- Natasha Seelam, Senior Deep Learning Engineer/Scientist @ Sherlock Biosciences
This International Women’s Day, I hope we all take proactive measures to make this world more equitable. I look forward to our panel and – more importantly – to all the continued opportunities to learn from the incredible women who are part of the SingleStore team.
