Today is International Women’s Day, a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. This year’s theme is #BreakTheBias, which is being used to raise awareness of bias, and to spark conversations around how we can create a world that is free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination.

To mark this important milestone in the calendar, we caught up with a couple of our Liquidlogic colleagues, who very generously shared what their career journeys have looked like so far, their proudest moments and their thoughts on diversity in the health tech industry.

Renee Tang, Senior Project Manager, Liquidlogic

Can you tell us a bit about your personal story and how you have got to where you are today?

I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in hospitality management, and then worked in hotels for 7.5 years starting as a receptionist and working my way up to events manager. While I was looking for new opportunities, I met Chris Lunn who worked at Liquidlogic, and he recommended that I apply for the System Expert role – it really appealed to me, and I decided to give it a go, even though it meant starting my career over.

I was successful in getting this role, and quickly got stuck into triaging customer JIRA UAT calls, and dialling into customer sites diagnosing their issues and providing advice where I could.

My long-term goal was to eventually be a project manager as I felt I already had the necessary customer service skills acquired for the role. I was delighted to be promoted to a project manager two years after I had started. My journey has been nothing but exciting, starting off my new career managing roadmaps and business as usual, then moving onto new implementations, eventually moving to manage our newest/latest education and finance products. I have now been a PM for 7 years and my total service at Liquidlogic is close enough to 9 years (come July). Most recently, I have been promoted to a senior project manager.

What has been your proudest career moment to date?

Not being afraid to completely change my career and industry. I think I really showed myself that I was strong willed. Most recently, a very proud moment was being made a senior project manager – over the years I have prided myself on being a key player in providing the software that’s needed for vulnerable people, working together as a team in providing that service and being able to build trustworthy relationships with my customers.

Opportunities in the tech sector are growing, including for social care and education. Do you think this is helping gender diversity in the sector?

Definitely. Since starting at Liquidlogic, I have seen a change in gender diversity within the areas I work in. I used to speak to primarily men (60/70%), but it now feels more equal with women also being in more senior positions. And I also think this depends on which area of the business you work in too, customer facing roles such as a project manager or even in sales, there is a good 50/50 ratio, and in some cases, there may be more women in those roles.

What would be your main piece of advice for women wanting to start a career in health tech?

You never know what you are capable of until you do it, the scariest part is the initial decision. Be confident in the choice you have made and roll with it. It’s a stable industry to be in, and there are so many opportunities within the health tech and tech industries. I would encourage anyone to look into it as a potential career path.

Pooja Bhosale, Java Developer - Development & Product, Liquidlogic

Can you tell us a bit about your personal story and how you have got to where you are today?

I was always a maths student, then when I was in year 9 at school,  I got access to a computer. My neighbour had bought it, but they didn’t know how to access it. I used to help them with all their computer projects/works. I have known since then that I wanted to go for a master’s degree in computers and become a computer professional. During an internship, I developed a project for mutual funds in JAVA. I loved Java so much that I did the JAVA J2EE development course and became a Java Developer.

What has been your proudest career moment to date?

I have been part of many big IT projects, but I can proudly say that I was one of the developers who worked on the NHS Spine project for three years (which supported the IT infrastructure for health and social care in England, joining together over 28,000 healthcare IT systems in 21,000 organisations. It has been replaced by Spine Futures). This was a hugely prestigious, nationally impactful project.

I was also part of the development of the WorldShare Library Project which connects users to thousands of libraries across the globe. Entire collections can be viewed at a glance at WorldCat.org.

Right now, I am part of the Liquidlogic development group on the education project for councils, which enables parents to apply for their children using our portals. All of these are very big projects on their own and I enjoy seeing them make a real difference to people’s lives.

Opportunities in the health tech sector are growing, due in part to the acceleration of digital transformation amongst Trusts etc. over the past two years. Do you think this is helping gender diversity in the sector?

Yes, definitely, due to digital transformation in many sectors a lot of females are now joining the IT sector as testers, product owners, business analysts, support analysts and also developers.

Why do you think gender diversity is so important in the tech industry – and what can be done to help improve it?

I have worked with a very few female developers in my career. I know it’s a demanding profession as we need to keep our selves updated and ahead all the time with the latest technologies. Gender diversity in any domain is highly important, a balanced team is more creative, experimental, organised and sorted emotionally and ethically.

To improve gender diversity, we need to fully support people – regardless of gender, making them comfortable and also providing necessary trainings and education. There are some women that prefer to work part time, due to having small children at home or other household responsibilities (this can apply to men as well, of course). If we can provide them with flexibility in the IT sector as well, whether it’s the ability to work at home or agreeing flexible hours, I am sure even more female developers would join the industry.

What would be your main piece of advice for women wanting to start a career in health tech?

My main piece of advice would be that there are various technical courses available to start a career in the technical sector, and most of the companies provide necessary training as well. So, if you are interested in a career as a developer, please use these opportunities to explore the industry, prepare yourself and to develop your profile.

I will finish by saying this is the most fantastic career decision that I have ever made, I have been associated with projects that are making a significant different to our day to day lives. I would recommend it to anyone. If it’s something that you would like to pursue, don’t think twice – just go for it!