Seeing The Importance Of Utilizing Technology To Empower Women

"Women with Impact" East Ventures 2023 event in Jakarta (photo: Dinda Buana/VOI)

JAKARTA - To commemorate International Women's Day which falls on March 8, East Ventures, a pioneering and leading sector-agnostic venture capital firm in Indonesia is again holding its flagship women-centric program, "Women with Impact."

In collaboration with Google Indonesia, the program entitled "Tech for gender equity: Empowering women, improving livelihoods" was presented by three female speakers working in the technology sector, including Isabella Wibowo, Strategic Partnerships Manager YouTube Indonesia, Ardelia Apti, Chief Executive Officer Mapan, and also Grace Tahir, Co-Founder of Medico & Everest Media.

In this discussion, the speakers raised the issue of women being underrepresented in the technology sector, both as consumers and producers. This is of course not only to their detriment but also to society as a whole, as women bring unique perspectives and skills.

Isabella Wibowo, revealed that it was very difficult to find women in companies that focused on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), even in the early days of Google. Therefore, the tech giant created the Women@Google Community program.

"This program has two goals, namely to ensure that women can be educated and prepared to enter the world of technology and to ensure that women can survive after they enter the technological landscape," said Isabella in Jakarta.

On the other hand, Grace Tahir also shared her personal experience where she witnessed that technology has given more preference for women and the younger generation to be themselves without having to change their personality to a certain figure that has been portrayed by traditional media for decades.

At the end of this discussion, there is the most important conclusion which states that even though there will still be imbalances, now women must be more confident than before, especially skills in the STEM field.