Konica Minolta supports IT gender diversity project

Since 2015, Konica Minolta has sponsored Czechitas and its project to support entrepreneurship and IT knowledge capacity building for women. The project commenced in 2015 with a pilot scheme in the Czech Republic, which was extended to Germany the year after. The third phase now includes Poland and Austria.

The cooperation with Konica Minolta has seen over 50 workshops and courses, attended by more than 1,000 women, organized. These one-day workshops provide programing, web development, graphic design and data analysis education. The workshops show female pupils, students, professionals, entrepreneurs and career changers a new perspective in the IT environment and focus on how IT topics are approached and implemented in a corporate environment. Furthermore, Konica Minolta provides its own IT expertise by way of different company speakers at the workshops.

Dita Přikrylová, founder of Czechitas, explained: ‘As part of our workshops, we will provide students with sufficient knowledge to be able to apply for future jobs relating to programing, online marketing and data analysis.’

Katrin Oppermann, general manager of human resources and academy at Konica Minolta, added: ‘We strongly believe in this sponsorship and want to contribute to make this project together with Czechitas more international year by year. Konica Minolta is constantly striving for diversity in its teams, and it is therefore only logical to expand the program to support women internationally in the field of IT.’

Přikrylová continued: ‘It is a few thousand lives that we have changed. Our participants fully demonstrate that IT is not an obstacle for women but a challenge. Over the past few years, hundreds of women have completely changed their life goals, and they are now working in the fastest-growing sector of the workplace. We even managed to connect three Czechitas graduates directly to the Konica Minolta office in Brno.

‘Our goal is not just to change the stereotypes; we want to complement the school system in its problematic areas – most notably computer science teaching. Women do not even know how big a potential they have in this industry. We give them the basic knowledge and, above all, self-confidence. They have to continue themselves, but their results are amazing. Our courses gain high resonance and are usually fully booked within the first week of registration. This gives us the reassurance that our approach is going the right way.’