#203 Diversity Is The $60 Billion Opportunity Australian Businesses Can’t Ignore With Azadeh Khojandi, Co-Founder & Director and Katrin Schmidt, Co-Founder & Managing Director, GEEQ Sydney

GEEQ (Geeks With EQ) is a non-for-profit with an important mission: helping women get into IT and boosting the diversity of IT companies in Australia. To this day less than 20 per cent of Australia’s IT workforce are women, and this has far-reading implications, from the bias that gets built into technology itself through to the depth of innovative thinking available in the space. The two founders of GEEQ, Azadeh Khojandi and Katrin Schmidt, join us on this special podcast to discuss the work that they’re doing, and the traction that diversity is getting across Australian corporate spheres. “It’s important for us that we’re not only bringing women into the workforce, but helping them to grow and get the promotions, more responsibilities, and the fulfilment they deserve,” Khojandi says in the podcast. GEEQ is more than an advocacy group. It focuses heavily on skills and mentoring, providing women with books on leadership and managing events to assist with knowledge transfer. On the side of advocacy, the two are focused on helping the Australian business community recognise biases in the hiring process and how to mitigate against that, Katrin says on the podcast. “It’s really difficult to have awareness of your own unconscious bias,” she says. “It’s like stopping and thinking to yourself, ‘what did I just do?’. The first step is a change in awareness. You don’t have to jump to conclusions, but you do need to watch and be aware.” Azadeh and Katrin are sponsors at the upcoming Data Engineering Summit and will be hosting a luncheon. It will be a rare opportunity to talk directly to some of the speakers from the summit and discuss how to tackle the ongoing challenge of diversity. In the meantime, tune into this in-depth podcast, and hear from the experts about why diversity is a $60 billion opportunity for Australian businesses. Learn more about GEEQ: https://www.linkedin.com/company/geeq-australia/ Thank you to our sponsor, Talent Insights Group! Read the full podcast episode here.

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