Celebrating the Success of the Indigenous Women in Tech Reconciling Tech Hackathon

The IWT Hackathon winners and volunteers posting with the winning cheques — The IWT Hackathon participants, volunteers, organizers and mentors

Women make up 6% of tech founders and 25% of the entire industry. However, there’s one group of women notably missing from this impactful industry: Indigenous women.

With funding from Women and Gender Equality Canada, Ethical Digital had the opportunity to build the Indigenous Women in Tech (IWT) project idea into action! This project was started as a way to stay accountable to:

Ethical Digital’s own mission to change the trajectory of the internet.
Call to Action #92: “We call upon the corporate sector in Canada to adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a reconciliation framework and to apply its principles, norms, and standards to corporate policy and core operational activities involving Indigenous peoples and their lands and resources.”

We saw the vast underrepresentation of Indigenous women in the lucrative and growing technology sector here in Canada and set out to understand why.

Why Do We Need a Diverse Tech Workforce?

First things first: Why does this matter?

Gender equity and diversity in our tech workforce lead to an increase in innovation, higher performance and greater productivity. In fact, diverse companies show 19% more revenue.

Technology is also the foundation of so many day-to-day processes and experiences in our lives. Think of your smartphone, earbuds, computer, GPS, car remote-start. Most of us rely quite heavily on these technologies.

Well, technologies like these were often developed by a relatively homogenous team. This means that many points of view, experiences and cultures weren’t considered. We want to see Indigenous women’s interests represented in the world, so it’s key for them to be part of the innovators, creators, and developers that shape our world. If technology is shaping the future, we need all people involved in shaping the future.

The Underrepresentation of Indigenous Women in Tech

Just 2.2% of the Canadian tech workforce is Indigenous, and even fewer are women!

According to a recent BC Tech Association article, representation of Indigenous people in tech could be even lower at 0.7%!

So, we asked more than 100 Indigenous women this: What are the barriers and challenges that have prevented Indigenous women in Saskatchewan from pursuing careers in technology? Here are the results:

47% of Indigenous women noted that funding/money was the number one barrier when pursuing a career in technology.
28% of Indigenous women noted that training location/career location is a barrier to them working in the tech industry.
Indigenous women noted that educational and professional requirements are barriers to pursuing training and careers in the tech industry.
Indigenous women’s family obligations and childcare often keep them from pursuing training and careers in the tech industry.

From these findings, the Ethical Digital team put together a research report that you can download here.

Boosting the Number of Indigenous Women in Tech

Following the report, our team set out to take action with a Hackathon event! After all, information is only as valuable as what you do with it.

So, in partnership with Reconciliation Saskatoon and the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies (SIIT), Ethical Digital organized the Reconciling Tech Hackathon. Spearheading the project was Alina Perrault, our motivated and dynamic IWT Coordinator. Our team is so proud of the incredible event she put on (but more on that soon)!

We reached out to Saskatoon for sponsorship, mentorship, volunteers, and participation—and they delivered! The Reconciling Tech Hackathon took place on February 23rd & 24th at the SIIT headquarters in Saskatoon. During this hybrid event, teams were created to address the challenge statement: How do we successfully increase and sustain the number of Indigenous women working in the tech field?

Over the two days, teams worked hard to develop solutions with the assistance of mentors and learning sessions. They then presented their ideas to a panel of judges, and each idea shone with passion and merit. The winning teams were:

First place: Team misâskwatôminatik, with Michelle Banhegy, Martha Petite, Jade McLeod, Tristen Zinn and Sherry Clarke.

Auntie: Karen Robson (Affinity Credit Union)
Mentor: Noah Wilson (Futurpreneur Canada)

Second place: Aunty App with Julia Angus, Darbi Angus, Janelle Thomas and Jolene Wahobin

Auntie: Jasmine Dreger (Innovation Federal Credit Union)

Third place: wâsakâmon with Cora Bear, Karalyn Cameron and Samantha Fiss

Auntie: Kristy Jackson (Optek Solutions)

We’ve even gotten word that two of the winning projects are moving forward!

THANK YOU to everyone who made the event such a success! With your help, the IWT project was able to make a real impact. It brought together a diverse group of people willing to dedicate time and energy to problem-solving. This #WomensHistoryMonth, the Ethical Digital team is celebrating the immense success of this project advocating for economic opportunities and independence for Indigenous women.