Attended by more than 44 leading employers including Optum, Microsoft, Facebook, Sapient, Walmart Global Tech India, Unilever, Pega, Qualcomm, DBS Bank, Axis Bank, Novartis, Jubilant, Bajaj Allianz and Onmobile
Women in Technology (WiT) India’s virtual job fair, Ignite, saw more than 44 leading employers and over 30,000 women job seekers participating. This is deemed Asia’s largest virtual career fair ever hosted, and is also India’s first virtual career fair for women in science, technology, engineering or Math (STEM) fields.
Over 45 per cent of the total number of job seekers belonged to Tier-2 and smaller cities, while over 75 per cent had prior work experience. Over 23 per cent belonged to the 21-24 years age group. All candidates were offered the opportunity to attend specially-curated webinars and masterclasses to help them prepare for the interviews in the weeks leading up to the event. With Microsoft as the exclusive learning partner, the participants also had the chance to join advanced certification courses for free and try to fast-track their career. Almost 1200 one-on-one interviews were conducted during the daylong virtual fair.
Big names, such as Optum, Facebook, Microsoft, Novartis, HUL, Pega, KPMG, Jubilant Foods, Walmart Global Tech India, Qualcomm, DBS Bank, Axis Bank, Nagarro, Infosys, NASDAQ and Cognizant participated in the fair, offering over 2000 employment opportunities to women in STEM roles. The opportunities offered were in diverse industries, including Internet and technology, BFSI, automotive, healthcare and pharmaceuticals.
The fair, which was co-hosted by Thiinkequal and presented by Optum, received support from more than 40 communities, including WITI, BeyonDiversity, Aspire4Her, We are the City, GreyAtom, WIDS and IEEE Kerala.
Anuranjita Kumar, founder and CEO, WiT India rightly feels that WiT India “has transformed itself into a movement of sorts,” within a very short period of time. WiT Ignite is a unique and specially-curated event that offers participating employers a large pool of “niche, pre-assessed and ranked” candidates, which ensures quality and reduced turnarounds leading to more efficient and fast placements.
Saikumar Chintareddy – enterprise architecture and integration platforms, Optum Global Solutions, shares that their collaboration with WiT Ignite affirms their “commitment to intentionally pave pathways to improve women representation and progression in STEM.” Efforts have been increased during the pandemic to “to attract and create a pipeline of diverse talent in technology, launch second career paths and enable and prepare skilled women technologists to ascend company ranks, empowering them to perform their life’s best work.”
Despite women constituting almost 43 per cent of the total STEM enrollments in the country, they remain under-represesnted in the workforce.
