Bridget Adams and Thandi Viljoen – Founders of Zambezi Digital

Website: www.zambezidigital.co.uk

“The #ChooseToChallenge theme really resonates with us as it about all of us calling out and challenging any inequality we see. We all have a role to play to help facilitate change – and that is powerful. Don’t leave it up to everyone else and do your bit!”

“We believe that men should play a massive part in unlocking long standing biases and inequality. Most men see the value of equality and support it; however, a lack of awareness may hinder good intentions.”

“Men probably need to check their inherent biases and challenge themselves and others when making key decisions that could have a negative impact. It is important for those who are in positions of power to advocate women’s advancement, whether that is in politics or in everyday workplaces. We need more male allies to get on board and be advocates for change.”

“There has been progress with visibly more women in tech and schemes and programs to encourage more women to enter the sector and support them. Its been great to see the introduction of regulatory processes such as gender pay gap reporting, so that companies being accountable for their biases. However, it’s also clear we still have a long way to go.”

“In our experience, we have not seen women competing. In fact, as a female partnership, who have a lot of women led business clients, we are big advocates or women collaboratively. Part of our ethos is to get women feeling confident working with technology – be that a website CMS or marketing software to help their business, that’s why our training offer is very popular.”

“Our advice would be, keep at it, be resilient and be your best authentic self. If a workplace is worth working for, they should recognise your talents and skill set and your gender should be irrelevant. With the rise of cancel culture, companies are more aware that they need to demonstrate they are an inclusive place to work if they want to attract good people. Failure to do so will result in talented tech women going to their competitor instead!”

“If you want a mentor, just ask! I think most women – and men are pleased if they are asked and would welcome the opportunity to share their experience. Even better would be for companies to have a mentorship scheme in place which if offered to everyone as standard.”

“Entrepreneurs must be prepared to take some risks whether that’s giving up your job to start a business or not taking a standard career path. For us, when we set up our business from scratch 9 years ago, were willing to work alongside (and have a few kids) until we could afford to be solely paid via the business. In line with this, careful cash flow management is key.”

“It may be boring, but it is a crucial factor to enable your businesses to survive beyond the first year. Perseverance is also vital, you will get knock backs, business may be slow some months, but you must carry on.”

“Our advice for young female entrepreneurs would be to just act and go for it. There is no reason why you can’t launch your own business alongside your regular job – dream big but start small and make the first steps towards your new career or business.”

“There are not as many female website developers as coding has been a traditionally a male dominated area. This may make this career choice less appealing for aspiring young women which is a massive drain of talent. Thankfully, this is changing, with organisations like Girls Who Code who are making it a more attractive option for young women. We would like to hope that our daughters would consider technology as an exciting and aspirational area to work in when they are older.”