A new Digital Women’s Group and bursaries for women aim to encourage diversity.
Our newly appointed CEO, Melinda Matthews Clarkson, announced today that she’s targeting more female applicants for our 16-week Professional Software Development course as part of an overall strategic plan to get more women employed in Scottish technology roles.
Melinda, who joined CodeClan in November, has launched a Digital Women’s Group to help drive the initiative and has intentions to make bursaries available for women, in addition to male or female applicants who face financial constraints, in 2018.
While 1 in 4 of our graduates placed in tech roles to date have been female, close to 50 per cent of the first class of 2018 in Edinburgh are women. Overall, we’re aiming for women to total 40 per cent of our graduating classes by 2020.
Melinda said: “Narrowing the gender and diversity gap in the workplace has been unequivocally shown to increase productivity and perspective and that’s a very clear economic rationale for encouraging inclusivity in the digital economy. While one organisation can only do so much, we are confident that our working group will allow us to team up with even more advocates from the business scene. We also intend to engage with some leading Scottish companies to support a bursary scheme for women which we know will be a big difference maker.”
Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science Shirley Anne Somerville said: “I welcome the support of CodeClan for this Government’s ambition to make Scotland a STEM Nation and also Melinda Matthews Clarkson’s personal commitment to enabling more women to work in the digital economy. We want more people in Scotland, particularly girls and women to embrace the opportunities offered by a career in digital. Closing the skills gap is central to enabling businesses to play their part in the global digital economy. CodeClan is an excellent example of public and private sector working collaboratively to address this issue by developing an increasing supply of diverse, job-ready talent.”
Maria Gutierrez, VP of Engineering at accountancy software provider FreeAgent, one of the companies that have taken on CodeClan graduates, and the Director of Women Who Code Edinburgh, said: “Ensuring that we have diversity in our team allows us to better represent our customers and also helps us explore different ways to solve problems and challenge each other to achieve greater results. As a technology leader, I fully support initiatives like this that allow and encourage currently underrepresented groups to contribute to this industry”.
CodeClan was launched in October 2015 and is supported by the Scottish Government, Skills Development Scotland and ScotlandIS as part of the Government’s Digital Strategy for Scotland. Almost 300 people have graduated from our Professional Software Development course, with over 90 per cent going on to secure employment within 5 months, and an additional 320 people are expected to graduate in 2018.
CodeClan also announces that former Skyscanner Talent Acquisition Manager, Kim Watson, has joined the team and will head the career development function working closely with Industry Engagement Manager, Graeme Jarvie.
Melinda Matthews Clarkson said: “Getting Kim on board is a real coup for CodeClan and we’re looking forward to leaning on her experience and expertise to help build our team and culture in the months ahead.”
