Women are still significantly underrepresented in the tech world, especially in management positions. TECHBOOK spoke to founder Güncem Campagna about the reasons and how to get more women into the industry.
Güncem Campagna is the founder and managing director of the non-profit “tech and teach gGmbH” in Düsseldorf and 1st chairwoman of “Women in Tech eV”. With her work, Campagna wants to help to significantly improve the opportunities for women to take up tech jobs. In an interview with TECHBOOK, the 49-year-old reviews her own career path, reports on the adversities that women still encounter today, and explains why things are going better in other European countries than in Germany.
Interview with “tech and teach” founder Güncem Campagna
TECHBOOK: Ms. Campagna, you are the founder and managing director of the non-profit ‘tech and teach gGmbH’. What does this company stand for?
Guncem Campagna: “tech and teach” is a very broad educational offer on technological topics for children, young people, teachers, but also adults who want to continue their education or reorientate themselves. At the same time, I am the first chairman of “Women in Tech eV”, which has set itself the task of networking women in technological professions and advising potential newcomers on relevant career opportunities in the German-speaking region.
Today, a certain level of understanding of the new technologies is essential. What influence did “Tech” have on your career planning?
At first none at all, my career path was planned completely differently. I studied economics to understand how the economy works as a whole. But my heart has always belonged to marketing, so I ended up working for a large corporation in international automotive marketing. Unfortunately, I soon had to realize that I kept reaching my limits because many structures in corporations are very static. In terms of my personality structure, however, I am a doer, so I left the corporate world in 2014. I was then looking for a job for a whole year and had to realize that I was suddenly left behind because the world was moving faster and faster in the direction of digitization.
Was there something like an aha moment?
Yes. Whenever I looked at the job advertisements, they contained so many terms from the digital world that I didn’t understand that it came as a real shock to me. But then I quickly did everything I could to acquire the digital skills on my own and, for example, attended a lot of events on digital topics. Suddenly I realized how well I was able to create the connection between these two worlds, the world of classic business and marketing on the one hand and the digital world on the other.
Did you have specific role models?
No, at least there wasn’t a specific person. For me, economics and marketing were the areas I was drawn to. In this sense, you could perhaps call economics and advertising my role models.
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career in the tech industry
What happened then?
Eventually I found myself as a consultant for startups and it struck me for the first time that there are very few women in this startup world and in the corresponding technological jobs. That really annoyed me at the time. Digitization has had an ever-increasing influence on our lives, on health, communication, etc., but women have not participated. That’s why I started giving workshops on digital topics only for women and developing corresponding business models. Unfortunately, these workshops were not very well attended – which in my experience was also due to the fact that someone who had already lost interest in such topics as a girl was later not able to get enthusiastic about them as a woman either.
Did this knowledge lay the foundation for “tech and teach”?
In a way, yes. Because in 2016 I offered the first programming workshop for girls and things just took off from there. In 2020 “tech and teach” was founded as an initiative and finally renamed “tech and teach gGmbh” in 2021.
Has anything changed on a broad basis since then? Are there more women in technical courses and in technical professions?
I really wish I could say yes. But the current situation doesn’t allow for that. What has actually changed is that there are significantly more initiatives organized for women, both public and private or organized by civil society. However, the numbers that provide information about women in tech jobs or about startups founded by women are still hardly changing.
However, I am hopeful that it has at least been recognized that the journey into tech-land has to start very early, in school. However, this is where the big problem in Germany lies. There is a dramatic shortage of teachers, and things are particularly bad in computer science, which is not a compulsory subject. Although the course is currently being set for the future, we will probably only know in ten or even more years whether anything will have really changed by then.
“In certain situations I felt this bias”
How was that for you personally? Were you taken seriously when you started your own tech business?
I think people smiled at me at first. Nobody said to my face “You can’t do it, I don’t trust you to do it”. But in certain situations I have felt this bias. For example, when you were in a larger group, the men talked animatedly and everyone showed interest in the projects discussed. But when I talked about my plans, the best I could say was, “Okay, Güncem, nice, interesting”. But that’s about it.
They simply didn’t take me seriously and, above all, didn’t recognize the business potential of the whole thing. You saw the social character, because “women stand for social professions”, as they said. I was often the only woman in such a group, which made the whole thing even more disappointing.
How is it today, does it still feel like missionary work?
At least I’m almost always the only one in the tech field. When women found a start-up, it is usually in areas such as food, lifestyle or social affairs. But when it comes to artificial intelligence, blockchain, etc., women are still very rare.
With “tech and teach” you want to change that; what numbers are we talking about?
First let me mention that our numbers have almost doubled every year so far. One reason for this is that we are now a partner of the Vodafone Foundation, which has given us a big boost. As far as the numbers are concerned, last year we had around 10,000 people who took advantage of our educational offerings. For this year we expect 13,000 to 14,000 participants. Despite all the joy about it, one shouldn’t forget that although we provide impulses and inspiration, we don’t support people until they make their final career choice.
situation in Germany
In Germany, there is a great shortage of skilled workers, especially in technical professions. Do you trust women to be a resource here?
In any case! There is a strategy paper by the federal government on the subject of which resources must be tapped in order to counteract the shortage of skilled workers. Women are one of the most important factors. But there are still more women working part-time here than in almost any other European country. Because these women do not have any childcare facilities, potential working hours are wasted and this resource is not fully utilised. Here, with the possibilities for care or nursing, politics must find solutions.
Why are things going so much better in many other European countries?
In the former Eastern Bloc countries and the Baltic States in particular, the rates are significantly higher than here. Because there, tech jobs are like any other – even for women. This is not least due to the fact that the hurdles for a technical degree, such as engineering, are not nearly as high as here.
Last but not least, what advice would you give to young women today who might be interested in a tech career but don’t know how to go about it?
The biggest mistake is not questioning something and thinking that my path is predetermined. And under no circumstances should I only rely on the classic job information offers. Professions are often presented there that will no longer exist in a few years. These advice centers simply could not keep up with the speed of digitization.
Rather, I really have to listen to what interests me. If a tech job is still an option, I would try to do a series of internships first. Then I can see whether I might like the job in question in practice. So I should take my destiny into my own hands and dare to take the first step.