Page 9 - BusinessWest January 10, 2022

tion was compromised. The more she learned about cybersecurity, the more she related it to the non-technical things people do every day to keep safe, from locking doors to watching over their kids. In short, she saw an appealing human element to a technical field.
“We do that as mothers naturally, always try- ing to protect our children, always checking in and protecting. I just get paid to do it,” she said. “I think it comes naturally as a woman; we’re the nurturers in a positive sense, a protective sense.”
She agreed with the others BusinessWest spoke with that more awareness of the breadth
AP College Board has done a lot to try to get girls to take AP classes in computer science. It’s nice to see as we try to grow that pipeline, and see it broaden and become more diverse.”
The education needs to start earlier than high school, though. “They say that most kids start thinking about careers in middle school. So we need to start educating them there,” Hoff- man said, adding that girls need to see more female role models from the IT world.
“As more women go into IT, they will encour- age even more women to go into IT. But it’s just slow. We should start them young — even at home, often the robotics and the computers are
to figure it out.”
For older women and career changers, Tech
Foundry, a workforce training program affiliated with Paragus, is one example of how to create opportunity — “to just make it doable for them, because it can be scary,” LeBrun said. “There’s a lot to learn in the field.”
IT companies would do well, she added, to seek employees who might not have every tech- nical skill, but brings fresh perspectives to an organization. “They might not have the tradi- tional background, but have the drive and per- sonality, and the rest can be taught.”
The collaborative nature of much IT work is appealing as well, Hoffman said. “A lot of people don’t realize the stereotype of a nerd in his base- ment, coding away, it’s not like that anymore. It takes a team to create software.”
The IT industry is also becoming integrated into other careers, she added, from healthcare to finance. “More and more, all fields are inte- grating IT, so no matter what you do, those skills are going to be useful in the future, especially
in Massachusetts, with so much growth in bio- technology and health sciences.”
The ability to work remotely is another plus — for many firms, a fairly recent one, Benson said.
“Because we had no other choice, we had
to work remotely during the pandemic. That has opened doors of possibilities for all people, including women. You don’t have to uproot your family to move to a state heavily populated by cybersecurity opportunities. Now some organi- zations are OK with you working remotely.”
“Everyone is now living in such a connected world that there is a need to protect every aspect of our lives.”
bought for the boys, not the girls.” Disparities linger in school districts as well, she said, noting that suburban
schools are more likely to present robust computer-science programs than urban and rural schools.
That’s a lot of factors in play, she told BusinessWest, “but it’s slowly changing.”
Serve and Protect
LeBrun admits IT can be an intimi- dating field for women, considering the gender disparity and stereotypes, and is glad she found a company in Paragus that
employs — and promotes — plenty of women. She hopes others will find similarly supportive cultures.
But she also believes women need to con- sider how important IT is to the work world as a whole and how gratifying it can be to be a part of that.
BEVERLY BENSON
of IT careers, from the highly technical side to the more relationship-driven side, would boost the number of women interested in pursuing it. “There are a variety of careers within the field — they need to know it’s much more than coding,” she noted.
“There is a need to protect information and infrastructure in every sector,” Benson went on. “It has the potential to impact the food you eat, the vehicles that you drive, it can impact health- care and your medical records ... everyone is now living in such a connected world that there is a need to protect every aspect of our lives.”
Hoffman agreed. “It’s a really awesome field of high-growth, high-paying jobs,” she said. “Also, technology is essential in any field now. A lot of folks are missing out on the opportunities out there. And I think a lot of it starts with edu- cation. We need to let people know about these careers and have girls experience them.”
To that end, Hoffman is part of a nonprofit, Holyoke Codes, that aims to bring coding and robotics to kids in Holyoke. She also received grant to build a high-school curriculum called CSAwesome, a free e-book that teaches AP CS A and Java and is becoming more widely used in high schools.
“That’s great to see, too,” she said. “And the
“A lot of people don’t realize the stereotype of a nerd in his basement,
coding away, it’s not like that anymore. It takes a team to create
”
“COVID really opened up businesses’ eyes to how important their IT is and how much they depend on it,” she said. “We try to tell our clients, ‘picking your IT firm should be as important a decision as picking your lawyer or accountant.’ We’re a partner. We’re working to protect their business.
“And I think that’s really exciting,” she added, “to be in an industry that can protect other companies so much — it just creates so many opportunities. Again, it’s about bringing that awareness to girls in school who are still trying
software.
In short, opportunity abounds. Hopefully, the women we spoke with said, awareness will follow — and stereotypes will continue to crumble.
“I try to encourage women to give it a try,” Benson said. “My mantra is ‘dare to dream.’ I want to see more women in this field. We need them.” u
Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]
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