Microsoft expands Hong Kong camp to encourage more young women to work in IT

Tech giant reaches out to secondary school pupils in an increasingly important sector for city’s economy

ALICE.WOODHOUSE@SCMP.COM

PUBLISHED : Monday, 11 January, 2016, 8:15pm

UPDATED : Monday, 11 January, 2016, 8:21pm

2015 Microsoft GirlSpark alumni Connie Chu (left) with Yody Chiu Mei-ka, one of this year’s participants. Photo: Felix Wong

Young women are being given a leg up into the information technology sector with the help of Microsoft as the technology giant expands a three-year-old programme to secondary schools.

The Microsoft GirlSpark Camp held in collaboration with the Women’s Foundation and the Ivey Business School is designed to encourage young women to pick a career in ICT after a study by the foundation found women made up just 10 per cent of IT departments in more than half the companies surveyed.

This year, 72 per cent of the 60 participants studied subjects outside science, technology, engineering and maths as the camp is designed to attract female university students who might not consider careers in the ICT industry.

Microsoft’ s Horace Chow says programming is not the only option in the technology field, Photo: Jonathan Wong“Today, we’re all influenced by the digital world, so you can develop technology or you can apply the technology,” said Horace Chow, general manager of Microsoft Hong Kong, “We want to tell all the students based on some real life cases that in fact if you’re interested you can pick your career along that line, it doesn’t have to be programming, to be in the technology field.”

READ MORE: Hong Kong must help more women study science and maths

For the first time, the GirlSpark Camp included secondary school pupils from three schools with a Minecraft coding workshop designed to inspire interest in ICT among younger students.

The IT sector is increasingly important for the city with the Vocational Training Council estimating there will be demand for 4,800 workers to join the field each year for the next four years.

Chow said 40 per cent of Microsoft’s 400 staff in Hong Kong and 45 per cent of senior management are women but that the figure falls to less than 20 per cent on the technology side, such as in programming.

I wanted to join this camp to do something different, try to test my limits and what I can really do

STUDENT YODY CHIU

The camp is based around a Microsoft business case adapted by Ivey Business School to teach university students skills needed in the workplace. Participants receive career coaching and will also be given access to internships with Microsoft and programme partners.

Yody Chiu Mei-ka, a second-year global business studies student at Chinese University of Hong Kong who took part in the three-day camp earlier this month, said she had chosen to explore careers outside the traditional career path in finance.

“I wanted to join this camp to do something different, try to test my limits and what I can really do,” Chiu said. “It’s a great opportunity because it’s not all about technology, it’s also about business.”

http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/1899971/microsoft-expands-hong-kong-camp-encourage-more-young-women