The marriage of sports and technology can help narrow the gender gap

• Initiatives to boost access for girls and women to STEM education and careers are thriving in Singapore.
• When F1 took over the city recently, Tata Communications hosted a community event with experts from the worlds of gender equality, technology, and sports.
• Although women do make up more of the STEM workforce than they used to, there's still a long way to go before we reach true gender equality.

Men may have long dominated science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and careers, but in Singapore women's employment in science-based fields is climbing fast.

A combination of a strong STEM primary education system, combined with encouragement and mentorship from prominent companies and organizations such as the nonprofit United Women Singapore (UWS), appears to be working. Approximately 48% of all STEM degree candidates in Singapore's universities are women, and 41% of the tech workforce is now female.

The president of UWS, Georgette Tan, said: "We're proud of our flagship program that focuses on STEM and encourages young girls to take up STEM. The jobs of the future are digital, and a strong base will give these young women a leg up in STEM careers." Tan was speaking at Amp It Up, an event hosted by Tata Communications for STEM students during the Singapore Grand Prix in September.

Community engagement is getting girls and women into the sports and technology sectors

Tata Communications is one of the private partners working with the local community in Singapore on initiatives to boost female participation. Prior to Grand Prix week, Tata Communications launched the latest episode of its Empowering Tomorrow podcast, focused on how the alliance between technology and sports can promote more diversity and inclusion in the sector. The episode was hosted by Oriel Morrison, cofounder and chief strategy officer at APAC Network. She was joined by broadcast journalist and motorsport expert, Rosanna Tennant, as well as Georgette Tan, and Tri Pham, Tata Communications' chief strategy and innovation officer. 

Tata Communications, the official broadcast connectivity provider to Formula 1, has seen the effect of encouraging women to work in STEM fields. "We recognize the importance of mentoring and encouraging women to participate in innovation and to work towards building a stronger future for all of us," said Amitabh Sarkar, vice president and head of Asia Pacific and Japan, enterprise, for Tata Communications.

A growing number of Tata Communications' engineers and programmers are female. "Studies show that if you connect the dots between diversity and innovation, the company that applies diversity has significantly better results," Sarkar said. "Participation of women across the organization is vital to staying ahead."

Tata Communications provides F1 with global end-to-end managed network services for video, enriching the experience for race fans. This includes the transfer of more than 90 video feeds and over 150 audio channels transmitted between the team at each Grand Prix and the F1 Media & Technology Centre in the UK for all 23 races in the 2023 season. 

The partnership between F1 and Tata Communications creates experiential and immersive experiences for a discerning global fanbase and millions of users. Tata Communications also works with customers globally to create similarly experiential and immersive user experiences with its cloud communications platform DIGO — these customer journeys are omnichannel, fast, and intuitive, suited to a rapidly evolving, digital-first world that demands agility, acceleration, and hyperconnectivity. As they like to say at Tata Communications, "if we can do it for F1, we can do it for anyone."

During the Singapore Grand Prix, Tata Communications and F1 highlighted their work with UWS on a program that aims to meet the need for a more diverse and dynamic workforce through female education and mentorship programs. The program aims to build a wider horizon for career opportunities for women in all aspects of sports and technology. The STEM students who attended the Amp It Up panel were also able to take part in an exclusive tour of the F1 Event Technical Center (ETC). They were amazed both by the technology that powers F1 and the opportunities that the ecosystem offers to young adults, both women and men.

Rosanna Tennant joined the panel and spoke about the rise of women in F1. "We've had a female team principal, Monisha Kaltenborn, at Team Sauber. Hannah Schmitz is Red Bull's principal strategy engineer and Ruth Buscombe is head of race strategy at Alfa Romeo," she said. "The Alpine F1 team has a mentoring program designed to increase female participation in the sport."

She added: "It's about companies working with these initiatives to make sure that young women are aware of the available opportunities."

Tan said these programs provide a valuable "opportunity to be mentored by industry professionals, the opportunity to pick up skills that girls know will be useful when they want to get ahead in their careers... There are corporations like Tata Communications who are stepping up." These companies, she said, are "making a difference and wanting to be a part of these girls' journey to success."

A global drive for quality education and gender equality is magnified by the UN's SDGs

Tata Communications is deeply focused on the UN's Sustainable Development Goals on education and gender equality.

But there is still a long way to go. Recent statistics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) show that women are still underrepresented in STEM fields in the most advanced economies: 24% of the workforce in the United States, 17% in the European Union, and 16% in Japan.

Part of the issue, experts have said, is that stereotypes are learned early. A common refrain in many countries is that girls don't perform as well as boys in math testing. But when it comes to science classes such as biology or chemistry, girls frequently perform as well as boys — and often outperform them. "We also run a program that educates young men," Tan said. "Because we believe when you teach young boys about the value that women play in their homes, in schools, in the community, and at work, this is the magic formula that gets us to the point of gender equality."

Christina Teo is a former executive with Taiwanese electronics group Acer and the founder of She1K, an angel syndicate with 50% female investors that funds startups. She said women need to be effective when they step into the workforce. Addressing the girls in the audience at Amp It Up, she said, "I tell everyone to deliver results. My results were visible and that is how I moved up. Whether you're a man or woman, it's about what you deliver to the organization."  

Find out more about how Tata Communications is powering F1.

This article was created by Insider Studios with Tata Communications.