Entrepreneur: Why Gender Diversity in Tech Matters

Looking down the pipeline for the next generation of women in tech, the picture isn’t rosy. Of the STEM disciplines, tech is the only one where the participation of women has actually decreased in the last 20 years, explained Judith Spitz, a former Verizon CIO of 10 years, during the 2016 Propeller Innovation Festival in Hoboken, NJ. Low levels of female employment and leadership in tech should signal alarm bells, and not just for women. Gender diversity is increasingly becoming an economic argument, not merely an ethical one. So why does gender diversity even matter, anyway? What’s wrong with having an 80% male dominated profession?