HerTechPath (HTP) is a grass-roots community of IT professionals in South Australia, who are striving to celebrate and inspire women and girls to consider rewarding and diverse careers in the technology sector. The HTP community run free briefings for high schools in metropolitan Adelaide, along with networking events and other opportunities for members.
“As an employee of DXC, I find it really heartening to see us involved in initiatives such as the HTP project. It shows DXC cares about making a change and moving towards a more equal future. The team at the Adelaide DTC who worked on this project did such an amazing job! The HTP committee just can’t thank them enough for all their hard work.”
Amy Morran Client partner for DXC and HTP committee member
Inspiring women to pursue careers in the tech industry
HTP was formed by a group of female IT professionals in Adelaide, who are striving to inspire the next generation of females into the technology industry. DXC Technology is proud to be a founding technology partner to HTP.
Amy Morran, client partner for DXC and HTP committee member explained, “The Australian technology industry is facing a real problem with low numbers of female graduates entering the sector. We recently interviewed around 50 graduates at DXC in Adelaide and only one candidate was a female.”
HTP is challenging this reality by visiting high schools to speak to students about the potential of a career in the technology sector. Female industry experts explain the various types of tech roles and what a typical day might look like. The briefings have been very well received to date with consistently positive feedback provided by participating schools.
HTP also offers regular informal networking events that members can attend as part of their membership, providing opportunities to build their professional networks, profile and connections. Amy said, “This project is about women and girls in tech and trying to spread the word that technology is not just a boy’s industry. This is an issue that’s very close to my heart, because I know how hard it can be to work in a male-dominated field, and I’d love to have more female colleagues!”
Business challenges
HTP’s volunteer committee knew it wasn’t viable to continue managing school briefing requests, events, and memberships manually. The time-consuming effort involved was not sustainable on top of everyone’s full time jobs.
DXC first became involved with HTP when two of its employees joined the not-for-profit as members. After joining the group, they identified a need to improve organisational efficiency through a digital transformation. A new modern platform offering a simpler process for schools to request a briefing, an automated event management solution, and improved self-service to information was needed
Solution
The team at the DXC Digital Transformation Centre (DTC) in Adelaide was approached for initial ideas. DXC’s DTCs are places for digital innovation, discovery, development, and importantly, fast delivery. Working jointly with the client, DTC teams help organisations create a clear, navigable digital transformation roadmap, turning ideas into specific steps to rapidly solve business problems and accelerate business value.
Digital transformation experts from the Adelaide DTC assisted the HTP board to build strategies and roadmaps, by first understanding the business problem and then developing incremental solutions.
Leveraging an Agile approach with defined sprints, incubation of new ideas was made possible.
Using two-week sprints and regular progress meetings with the HTP board, ideas were fleshed out quicker with the approach ensuring lower risk for all involved (fail fast and learn early). Following the comprehensive ideation and development process, the DTC team created a robust platform, with a range of functionality including:
- An online booking system with no human intervention required. This allows schools to book briefings by completing and submitting a form, with HTP members then sent a request to review with the opportunity to volunteer as presenter. Once two volunteers are confirmed, the system creates the event and confirms details with the school. All coordination and liaison is managed automatically by the system which has substantially reduced the board’s workload;
- The ability for professionals to sign up for membership with HTP;
- Simple creation and promotion of networking and other events for members with a fully automated registration and ticketing process; and
- Provision of general information for women working in IT.
- A comprehensive automated website using a dual cloud solution leveraging Azure App Services for website hosting and AWS Cloud Services for enabling the business services, ensured the best result at the lowest cost.
Eventbrite was embedded into the website to provide online event management and ticketing services. This allows the HTP team to share events and sell tickets from their own website while ensuring a robust and future-proof solution to manage this important aspect of the business. Stripe’s payment processing platform was also embedded to facilitate the payment process.
Results
Since launching the website (https:// hertechpath.org) at an event at the Museum of South Australia in Adelaide, the HTP board has noticed an influx of school briefing bookings. The event itself generated considerable interest in the tech sector, and membership of HTP has also seen steady growth since — which, in turn, will support the long-term sustainability of the not-for-profit.
Benefits delivered to date for HTP members include:
- One central portal available for simpler management of member event bookings;
- Time savings for board members since they can now refer people to the website for information;
- A simple way for schools to book briefings for their students;
- The opportunity for HTP to visit more schools to complete briefings in order to reach goals for increasing the number of females pursuing careers in technology; and
- An increase in members due to streamlined processes for obtaining membership.
To ensure success, the DXC team:
- Consulted with HTP board members throughout the entire journey from concept and design, through to testing and piloting;
- Involved best suited project team members with relevant experience and success. This included half the team being filled by women and ensuring team diversity; and
- Ensured DXC staff remained flexible to work with the HTP team outside normal working hours when the volunteer committee was available to work on the project.
The project was embraced by DXC as part of an industry participation plan required by the South Australian Government. As HTP is a not-for-profit organisation, DXC contributes to the development, on-going maintenance and support for the website.
Amy concluded, “As an employee of DXC, I find it really heartening to see us involved in initiatives such as the HTP project. It shows DXC cares about making a change and moving towards a more equal future. The team at the Adelaide DTC who worked on this project did such an amazing job! The HTP committee just can’t thank them enough for all their hard work.”
What the future holds
HTP are aiming to brief 10,000 students in the first three years. Judging by the influx of school briefing bookings through the website since it went live in June, this will easily be achieved. With a single link now able to be shared to generate interest, membership also continues to grow steadily.
Further development of the website is a possibility and could include, for example, live streaming of briefings or events. Increased sharing of information is also an aim, along with greater member attendance at events.
For now, HTP are enjoying the extensive functionality of their new platform, the time-savings individual committee members are experiencing, and the other benefits that automation brings.