Connecting Women in Technology (CWiT), a network of women employed as senior leaders at more than 20 of Ireland's largest technology companies, remains committed to improving gender balance within the sector and supporting the next generation of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.

Established in 2009 by women at Microsoft, Accenture and Dell, CWiT recently held its annual CEO Forum to discuss its progress and plans to attract, retain and promote women in technology and address the gender gap that persists in the sector.

The network continues to deliver and support a number of flagship programmes, including Digital Futures, the STEM Teacher Internship (STInt), Tech Starter and Teen Turn Programme, and it has also partnered with the 30% Club to collaborate on complementary activities to advance gender balance in tech.

Speaking to Business Plus, Gina Kelly, senior corporate relations manager at BT Ireland and a pillar lead at CWiT, said that members donate their time freely, sharing the goal of trying to create greater female engagement in tech and STEM.

"It can be quite busy, but we've got a great core of people and some great initiatives within the network that are driving impact," she added.

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The Digital Futures programme consists of interactive presentations to raise awareness of the diverse career opportunities in STEM among secondary school students considering their Leaving Cert subjects or CAO options, and it reaches more than 4,000 students each year.

Tech Starter is a panel discussion event organised by CWiT in universities, with panel members sharing their experiences working in STEM and their transition from education to the workplace, aimed at reducing the number of female dropouts from STEM degrees and increasing the numbers who enter tech roles after graduation.

Kelly said Tech Starter was one of CWiT's most popular initiatives, starting off as a series of career talks in university societies and growing as skills shortages in the evolving world of tech have become more apparent.

"It's not simply a female problem, but for us, I suppose it really is about encouraging more females to think about the different types of careers they're going into, and ... a lot of girls are going into third-level education and taking up STEM courses ... but a lot of them are dropping out after first or second year, not completing it and moving into something else.

"Whether that's a confidence thing or a fear thing, or the fact that they are usually a minority in their classroom, it's very difficult to say, but that is the case, and it's trying to work with girls whatever age they are ... to educate and inform about the many types of careers there are."

Elsewhere, CWiT's FIT the ICT Talent Pipeline set up Women Choose Tech last year with the aim of attaining 33% of tech apprenticeships for women by 2022 through efforts such as informing the school, education and training sector how they can integrate pathways for female students to tech careers into their career guidance activities and informing government policy development in setting goals for gender balance and diversity in the tech workforce.

FIT itself is an industry-led initiative aimed at promoting an inclusive smart economy by creating a fast track to marketable technical skills for those at risk of unemployment or under-employment in the long term, focused mainly on the IT sector, with training courses and work placement service for around 4,000 marginalised jobseekers annually.

CWiT also supports Teen-Turn's Teen-Turn Programme, which identifies students with academic promise from disadvantaged backgrounds for internships, so they can better picture themselves in tech careers.

Kelly explained that CWiT's mission has broadened over the years, beyond attracting, retaining and promoting women in STEM and towards greater diversity and inclusion with its efforts at grassroots level.

"We're really only going to see effective change if we start at the primary school level, at secondary school level, and there just needs to be more education, and that's how CWiT has evolved ... really working with young groups, disadvantaged communities."

CWiT also supports the Stem Teacher internship, a 12-week programme for teachers, who are brought into companies to give them a better insight into what working at a tech firm entails, is very much geared towards teachers returning to the classroom to inform their students of the possibilities in tech, Kelly said, because of the influence they have over their pupils.

"They [students] carry a lot of what they [teachers] say and we've seen that ourselves through the BT Young Scientist Exhibition that teachers can play an enormous impact on student's career choices and their third level choices,' Kelly said.

CWiT comprises of a steering committee, a group of senior leaders that oversees the active network, which is made up of pillar leads from all member organisations covering areas such as education, early careers, communications and events and networking, and which runs the various events.

Following the disruption of the past two years, especially acute for what is essentially a networking organisation -- although events have continued during the pandemic in virtual form -- CWiT is again ramping up "face to face" events for the year ahead.

"We want to get out and start meeting our colleagues from different companies again, and try to drive that impact a bit more in the initiatives that we do," she said, adding that reviving the Teen-Turnships was a particular focus.

"We couldn't have students coming into our offices and learning. They couldn't get work experience, and we're hopeful now that with the return to offices that we can bring back in those initiatives again."

While CWiT doesn't have the resources to do its own data and research and compile reports to power its efforts like its members' employers have been able to, it is active on the group and it has ambitions to "grow and evolve" in the post-pandemic era.

"We're working right now on our strategy as the world is opening up, and we never stop and say 'This is what we have to do'. We have to keep evolving, and we have a number of companies looking to join, so we hope to grow the network even more.

"We can only be as good as the members that we have, and the people within those organisations that come together to do this, so we love talking to new companies, and we love talking to organisations that have very strong diversity and inclusion policies."