Inclusive Innovation: students at Faro schools learn more about diversity in the tech market first-hand
October 24, 2023
The software company Turbine Kreuzberg based in Faro visited Faro schools to talk about the importance of diversity in technology in an event promoted by Portuguese Women in Tech.
Faro. Women are heavily underrepresented in tech jobs. Often it's said that lack of information and old prejudices withdraw female talents from tech jobs. To lower the threshold for girls to enter the tech job market, Portuguese Women in Tech (PWIT) and software company Turbine Kreuzberg visited Tomás Cabreira school to show students the daily work of a programmer in a software company, answer all their questions and promote the importance of a diverse setting. This is an event included in the nationwide initiative “Future PWIT”, which aims to attract more young women into the tech area.
The session happened on the 23rd of October and consisted of a presentation of the tech market in Portugal, followed by a panel discussion with Liliana Pereira (Back-end Developer) and Ana Picoito (Front-end Developer) from Turbine Kreuzberg moderated by Valter Miguel, an IT teacher at Tomás Cabreira School. There was still some time for the always essential Q&A session, in which students could ask all questions they had regarding the technological world.
"As a programmer, most of my team-mates are still men. Although I love my team, it would be great to have more female team-mates, because I think that a 'female perspective' contributes to the team's effectiveness."
– Ana Picoito, Developer at Turbine Kreuzberg
Liliana Pereira, also a programmer, reinforced the idea, saying "That's why I'm interested in sharing my example with younger girls, to awaken their interest in programming and, perhaps, alleviate their fears a little. Especially because these initiatives are important for demystifying the misconceptions that cinema and social media create. Here we have the opportunity to show the diversity of areas and functions that exist within the technological world."
“Women and girls are capable of excelling in tech jobs as much as men”, says Liliana Castro, co-founder of PWIT. “Our mission is to educate girls about their possibilities in the tech job market and provide them with female role models. That's why we are happy to work together with Turbine Kreuzberg, a company driven with the desire to increase their female share of employees, on these events.”
“We try to give our pupils insights into the working world as much as we can, so we were happy when Turbine Kreuzberg and PWIT approached us with the idea of this event.”
– Valter Miguel, Teacher at Tomás Cabreira
About Turbine Kreuzberg
Turbine Kreuzberg is a software company from Berlin. With 150+ engineers and tech experts working at the heart of companies' digital landscapes, Turbine Kreuzberg’s teams build and operate digital commerce platforms and enterprise applications. Beyond implementation, Turbine Kreuzberg helps companies shape the right technological strategies for their business – from designing system and software architectures, to finding the right implementation models, and evaluating cutting-edge technological approaches at an early stage.