As the pandemic recedes, tech companies are committed to driving higher adoption across industries, leading to growing demand for tech talent across the country. As per a study by 451 Research, a technology industry research firm, women form 34% of the IT workforce in India. With this insight at the heart of our initiative, and ahead of International Women’s Day, we rolled out ‘#WomenInCtrl’ – our first women-only hackathon in India.
As a part of this initiative, we invited women developers across India to create tech-first hospitality products for us. This hackathon was aimed at promoting diversity in tech, with a key focus on software development roles. High potential participants were also evaluated for roles in our technology team.
The virtual hackathon will be running between March 08th and 20th March, with a key focus on creating real-world technical solutions in the hospitality technology industry. Women coders can register on the HackerEarth website to join the challenge. The participants will have five hours to attempt and submit their innovative solutions to 10 Multiple Choice Questions and 2 live programming challenges. Our event platform of choice, HackerEarth will then evaluate the submissions and shortlist candidates for potential tech roles and mentorship by our technology team. This challenge will test the candidates’ skill sets and knowledge around data structures, algorithms, APIs, system design, among others. We are expecting participation from 2000+ women developers across India.
Commenting on the initiative, Ankit Mathuria, Chief Technology Officer, OYO said, “OYO’s tech & product teams are continually innovating for the evolving needs of travellers across the globe. We believe that customer-focused innovations happen when engineers from diverse backgrounds come together and problem solve. I am looking forward to meeting some of the most exceptional women in tech and hopefully, working alongside some of them soon. Doesn’t matter if you are a full stack engineer, a machine learning or data science expert or an info security geek but if you relate to our mission, you must participate.”
Driving diversity among tech teams
Diversity in tech has a long way to go. As per a study by 451 Research, a technology industry research firm, women form only 34% of the IT workforce in India. So, as a part of our all-women hackathon, we had also launched an ad which talks about the lack of gender parity that exists in the global workforce.
The headline, in capital bold letters, reads ‘This ad was written by women. Approved by men.” The copy further goes on to make a frank admission about how Women’s Day discussions were being guided by men, to drive an ‘impactful message’. We chose to take a hard look at ourselves and change this reality. We instead focused on building a diverse and equally represented organization, and the women-only hackathon is one of the key steps in this direction.
Commenting on the campaign, Mayur Hola, SVP of Global Brand, OYO said, “Women’s Day is just one day. So, will ads or campaigns actually make a difference by going Live for a day? We think not. So over the last few years, we’ve taken up initiatives as opposed to campaigns. In 2020, we decided lewd trolling towards women needed to be taken head-on and the ‘Safe Spaces’ initiative came into being. Over the last 2 years, 2 months, 8 days and counting, our ORM team (led by a woman and made up largely of women), schooled trolls who posted lewd comments directed at women, on our social platforms; 365 days a year. And we’re not done yet, the initiative continues. Over the last year, those comments have been reduced by 84%. And in 2022, it’s trending even lower. And now in 2022, we put #WomenInCtrl of our product development. As an organisation, we are committed to bringing diversity to our teams. This is an ongoing effort and it’s about time we make it our focus. Ultimately we’d rather discuss our acts over our ads today.”