ISLET and SAP join the Finnish “Women in Code” movement

Islet and SAP have joined forces to increase diver­si­ty and gen­der equal­i­ty in tech indus­try. In the begin­ning of 2021, the com­pa­nies orga­nize a free-of-charge chal­lenge relat­ed to user inter­face design and appli­ca­tion devel­op­ment with the #mim­mitkoodaa (#wom­en­code) move­ment, which has grown rapid­ly in the past years in Finland. 

The World Eco­nom­ic Forum (WEF) has esti­mat­ed that over 90 % of future work will require advanced dig­i­tal skills. Hence, equal­i­ty in tech indus­try serves the entire soci­ety in the long run. It is also impor­tant that women are involved in devel­op­ing tech­nol­o­gy, so that the women and girls’ needs are con­sid­ered bet­ter in these solu­tions. In addi­tion, diver­si­ty dri­ves inno­va­tions, which are the life­line of con­tin­u­ous­ly evolv­ing and devel­op­ing companies.

Islet and SAP have cre­at­ed a two-step chal­lenge, which aims to make an impact in many ways. The women get to indi­rect­ly con­tribute to a char­i­ty cause of pro­tect­ing the Baltic sea as part of already tra­di­tion­al #Islet­goe­sItämeri cam­paign. In the ”Move with Pur­pose” chal­lenge, to be launched on Fri­day 22nd Jan­u­ary 2021, the women first design a User Inter­face for the appli­ca­tion and then code the appli­ca­tion. The UI design­ing and pro­gram­ming are both car­ried out on SAP’s design and devel­op­ment plat­forms. The end goal is to cre­ate an app which is used for sub­mit­ting and track­ing of walk­ing, run­ning, and/​or cycling kilo­me­ters in the #Islet­goe­sItämeri cam­paign. Also, euros that accu­mu­late in rela­tion to the kilo­me­ters are tracked and final­ly donat­ed to WWF to pro­tect the Baltic Sea.

Pro­mot­ing diver­si­ty is noth­ing new to Islet nor SAP. On the con­trary – Islet Group has always been a pio­neer for a diverse and ver­sa­tile work­ing and think­ing in the world of tech­nol­o­gy. In an indus­try where males form a vast major­i­ty, Islet is a rar­i­ty: the com­pa­ny was found­ed by a woman and through­out its 23-year-old his­to­ry the CEO has been a woman. Women also form 50 % of the exec­u­tive board and 52 % of all of company’s employ­ees. We are proud to be dif­fer­ent. We gen­uine­ly want to improve gen­der equal­i­ty in tech­nol­o­gy and encour­age women to pur­sue careers in IT.

Islet’s part­ner SAP – a multi­na­tion­al, world’s lead­ing solu­tion provider for ERP sys­tems and tech­nolo­gies – strong­ly believes that a diverse work­force is an impor­tant com­pet­i­tive advan­tage. For 10 years SAP has con­tin­u­ous­ly increased the per­cent­age of women in their man­age­ment posi­tions. Accord­ing to their own data, cur­rent­ly 27 % of its lead­ers and 34 % of all its employ­ees are women. Even though change comes slow­ly, in recent years, SAP’s efforts for more diverse work­ing life have been wide­ly not­ed – f. ex. Forbes ranked SAP as the best employ­er for diver­si­ty for 2020, and for sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year, SAP was also select­ed for inclu­sion in the Bloomberg Gen­der-Equal­i­ty Index, which rec­og­nizes com­pa­nies that are com­mit­ted to trans­par­ent gen­der report­ing and advanc­ing women’s equality.

Islet and SAP whole-heart­ed­ly sup­port #mim­mitkoodaa (#wom­en­code) ‑move­ment and pro­mote diver­si­ty in the field of tech­nol­o­gy. The pur­pose of the move­ment is not only to encour­age women inter­est­ed of the soft­ware indus­try to learn cod­ing and pur­sue careers in IT, but also to make it more acces­si­ble to them. Togeth­er with its part­ners com­pa­nies, the move­ment pro­vides free of charge train­ings and events for women with diverse back­grounds and with­out any pri­or expe­ri­ence of cod­ing. The move­ment has already inspired more than 6000 women to join and the num­ber con­tin­ues to soar.

Learn more about Islet’s and SAP’s Mim­mit Koodaa Chal­lenge here and sign up!

#mim­mitkoodaa #diver­si­ty #inclu­sion #gen­der #equal­i­ty #chal­lenge #cod­ing #UI #Design #Soft­ware­De­vel­op­ment #SAP #ISLET­Group #Islet­ters