fempowermint female student's network on April 19th: "Diversity in IT"

Irmgard Gmachl, Head of Department Porsche Holding Solutions, gave an extremely sympathetic opening speech about her career path, which at the beginning definitely ruled out working in the IT sector. After her studies, in which she devoted herself to the various scientific approaches of mathematics, linguistics and law, her start in IT was nevertheless successful - even very successful, as can be summed up after almost 25 years and now as the main department head of Porsche Holding Solutions. Panelist Julia Kafka, company representative of the STIWA Group on the podium, can boast an equally exciting career path. After training as a landscape gardener at Schönbrunn, she turned to IT and now really enjoys solving problems in programming terms. Technical interest was also the trigger for Magdalena Zuschrader, Senior Data Scientist and Team Captain at Dynatrace, why she decided to attend an HTL after lower secondary school and already there encountered a male-dominated field.

In order to break down these conventional structures, all three discussants are concerned with increasing diversity in their environment and also in their companies. As always, diversity here is not limited to women in male domains, but also includes people from other backgrounds, in different life situations, of different ages, from different social backgrounds, ways of thinking, biographies, life plans and educational histories. Many studies confirm that diverse teams work more successfully and companies benefit from the diversity of their employees - if these teams are given the opportunity to get to know each other well and are well supported when problems arise. Fortunately, women are considered to have good communication skills, because with the necessary social skills, working in diverse teams is especially promising and enriching.

We would like to thank our speakers and discussants for the interesting insights into life and everyday life, as well as Tanja Jadin, Vice Dean for Teaching, who led through the evening. The next fempowermint student network event is already in the starting blocks and we are working on the program for 2023/24, where we are again looking forward to a lively participation!