The presence of women in engineering was dismal despite being encouraged to pursue the course while there is hardly any discrimination against them in the industry, said Ramesh Loganathan, professor of practice, Co-Innovations IIIT, Hyderabad.
He was speaking at the conclusion of the three-day ‘Women in Engineering’ (WIE) conference.
He said there were very few women in engineering. IIIT and other prestigious institutions like IIT had less than 15% girls, for that matter even Silicon Valley had just about 15% to 20% women.
Less than 10% of the start-ups had one women- founder, he said.
Better performance
He said there was urgent need for enhancing the percentage of women in workplace for the benefit of the society. Studies have indicated that inclusion of women created a healthy balance in corporate decision-making, often leading to better performance of the organisation.
Even amongst start-ups, studies have shown that having at least one woman as founder was more likely to lead the organisation to success , he said.
P. Narasimha Reddy, executive director, Srinidhi Institute of Science and Technology (SNIST), said a serious thought had to be given why, despite incentives, few women joined.
“We see very few women in engineering colleges despite the 33% reservation; just about 15 to 20% women students enrolled.”
K. Sumanth, principal of SNIST, said a total of 140 delegates attended the conference from across the country.