Sustainable Development through Gender Equality – A Case of Higher Education of Data Scientists

Abstract

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector in Serbia is fast growing and in constant high demand for qualified workforce. In order to continuously fulfil the demand, the National strategy for gender equality defined as one of the actions, requalification of the unemployed women for different ICT profiles. Investing in education is the policy of creating human capital that influences the overall development of the society. Women empowerment through education is recognized as one of the prerequisite for sustainable ICT workforce generation. Data science represents particularly important field of ICT which is still in its development phase in Serbia. All industries with transaction-based processes and industries that use connected or mobile devices or similar, which generate high volumes of data on a daily bases can benefit from application of data science in terms of increased profits and ROI. While developing data science in Serbia and during the peak of productivity in the overall ICT sector, it is important to acknowledge the lack of women in technology, why that is detrimental to progression, and to take intentional actions to overcome this issue. This paper addresses these issues and points to the large gender gap in ICT higher education which consequently shapes the ICT labor market and the workplace. In the paper we give an overview of the state of the art and perspective actions in the domain of higher education of female data scientists in Serbia, and highlight the opportunities for further improvements.