MILAN — The Yoox Net-a-porter Group has taken its commitment in promoting digital education a step further: The leading online luxury fashion retailer commissioned research in the U.K. to investigate what keeps young women from pursuing studies in technology.
Surveying 1,000 young people ages 11 to 16 and 1,000 parents of children in that same age bracket, the study shows that even if young women are aware of the availability of careers in technology, half of them believe that these are “unexciting,” while more than two-thirds think roles in tech are mainly about gaming and IT consultancy.
Outside of these jobs, young women associate technology careers with engineering, architecture, telecommunications and finance, ranking more creative industries — retail, luxury, travel, fashion and beauty — at the bottom of the list in terms of their relationship with tech roles.
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In particular, only 8 percent of the girls interviewed think that technology careers have a role to play in fashion, just 7 percent associate it with retail and only 5 percent think tech has a link with luxury.
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On the other hand, the majority of young men interviewed consider tech careers “exciting” and have a more open approach toward information and communication technology-related subjects.
In addition, the study highlights how young people’s career choices and aspirations are influenced by their parents first, followed by teachers, the Internet, friends and then TV shows and social media. Mirroring this feedback, less than 5 percent of parents in the U.K. associate the fashion industry with a successful career in tech.
Overall, what emerges from the study is mainly a lack of awareness and role models for the young people interviewed.
To wit, almost 40 percent of girls said that they would be more motivated to study tech-related subjects at school, including science and math, if they knew it could lead to careers in the fashion industry. Similarly, 36 percent of parents would encourage their children to do the same.
“It’s common to think of someone working in isolation, writing line after line of code when we think about careers in tech, but this couldn’t be further from the truth,” said Yoox Net-a-porter Group’s chief people officer Deborah Lee.
“Today, tech is a creative and flexible discipline, where consumer products and experiences are designed in a collaborative environment. This is especially true of tech and fashion, which together offer a wealth of opportunity which can only increase as these two industries continue to converge through e-commerce.”
The research is part of YNAP’s ongoing commitment to promote and encourage young people — especially girls — to consider careers in technology and to educate the next generation of digital artisans.
“We’re proud to be ahead of the curve with women forming two-thirds of our overall talent pool — double that of the tech industry average — but there is more work to be done,” said Lee. “The key to changing the misperceptions highlighted in our research is for leading businesses like YNAP, our peers, industry bodies and key influencers to collaboratively shine a spotlight onto positive role models,” she concluded.
In the U.K., YNAP implemented initiatives like the Imperial Codelab and the “Women in Tech” project, in addition to investing in its West London Tech Hub.
In particular, the former is the project that originated from the group’s partnership with London’s renowned Imperial College London university to teach local children ages 8 to 14 the basics of coding. Students attend 15 hours of classes at Imperial each term and the initiative now reaches up to 150 young coders each week — hailing from more than 150 different schools — 70 percent of whom are female.
“Girls decide very young that going into computing is not for them,” noted Susan Eisenbach, professor of computing at Imperial College London. “Through Imperial CodeLab and our partnership with YNAP, we hope to break down barriers and excite girls about careers in tech. By providing them with positive role models and equipping them with skills in problem-solving, creativity and computational thinking, we hope to inspire a diverse next generation of tech innovators.”
YNAP Group funds the initiative and occasionally hosts standalone classes at its Tech Hub, whose first anniversary was celebrated in May with a visit from HRH The Prince of Wales and HRH The Duchess of Cornwall during which the duo met 60 schoolgirls taking part in a Imperial CodeLab hackathon.
Similarly, in Italy YNAP Group is backing the Fondazione Golinelli Summer Coding camp. Running in two different months in Bologna, with the first camp ending last week, the free-of-charge initiative engages Italian students ages 14 to 16 years to code a customized tech gadget called Circuit Playground. This has the ability to interact with surroundings and detect temperature, light, sound and movement, further demonstrating the creative possibilities enabled by technology. With the second camp running Sept. 3 to 7, the initiative already reached the full number of 50 students enrolled.
In general, more than 2,000 students have taken part in digital education activities led by the YNAP Group since 2017, with girls making up more than half of that number.