TalentSprint, educational technology platform and NSE group company, has announced that the third cohort of the pioneering Women Engineers Programme, or WE, with support from Google, will begin in May 2021. Conceived in 2019, TalentSprint WE aims to reduce the gender disparity in the tech industry. The response has been overwhelming, with the first two cohorts having received 27,000 applications, of which 220 participants were invited to join the programme.
Encouraged by the positive response, this third cohort is being scaled up to accommodate 500 participants, targeting first-year women engineering students across India.
Despite the fact that Lady Ada Lovelace and Admiral Grace Hopper, are considered the world’s first computer programmer and software tester respectively, women professionals struggle to find a firm foothold in the technology sector. Today, only a measly 26 per cent of the global tech workforce comprises women. TalentSprint WE aims to address this gender imbalance by selecting, training, and nurturing gifted women engineering students from across India, with diverse academic pedigrees and socio-economic backgrounds to fulfil their potential in the field of software engineering.
Already, over 50 big corporates, including Google, Amazon, Flipkart, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, Accenture, Adobe, Capgemini, Oracle, Gojek and Mathworks have extended prestigious internships or job offers to these participants. The compensation offered to these women are at levels 150 per cent higher than the market median for fresh engineering graduates. Candidates will be admitted to the third cohort after being put through a rigorous multi-stage selection process. Partial or full financial aid will be given to students joining this cohort depending on their merit and financial backgrounds.
As Shiv Venkataraman, vice president, Search Ads, Google, rightly explained, “For tech to truly fulfil the promise of levelling the playing field and creating universally relevant solutions, the representation of women in tech organisations is key. The success of the previous cohorts has encouraged us to scale the program further and we are very happy to be extending support to TalentSprint to take this program to the next level.”
Dr Santanu Paul, co-founder and CEO, TalentSprint, proudly claims, “The programme has been growing from strength to strength in the last two years, and received overwhelming interest from industry, academia, and young women students both for its unique design and exceptional student outcomes. We realise this is just the tip of the iceberg and a lot more work can and must be done to accelerate gender inclusion. We are, therefore, delighted to deepen our partnership with Google and work with them to create a much bigger pipeline of young, world-class women software engineers this year.”
Interested young women engineering students may learn more about the programme at we.talentsprint.com and apply when apply between March 1 and March 21, 2021.
