The world around us is continuously developing and so is science and technology. The room of tech has opened a lot of doors for a wide range of opportunities recently. The technological world has envisaged a life full of hopes and scopes with all its vibrant and innovative discoveries. Our lives have become easier and 'are' becoming much more advanced and better.
Things seem so smooth and perfect, from the outside: by a single glance, when it comes to technological accomplishments. When we get into a deep introspection, we'll get to see a lot of mismatches and flaws hiding, since concealing our errors has always been a practice. Take, for example, health advancements using technology: a majority of them are not always compatible with all kinds of women which is because these instruments are tested and proven, mostly with male members. One such instrument is the artificial heart which may fit for 80% men but only 20% women. Take another case, of face recognition - it is found that people with darker skin tones are unable to use this feature properly. Scan these problems and it is evident that these issues arise because the ideas are trained in a set of majority people; not the diverse group. The fact I wanted to point out is -since it is obvious that the machines do not have the ability to recognize the differences among individuals and distinguish their variability, they should have been tested with different kinds of people, even taking the minority and the under-represented categories into consideration. Searching for the root cause, leads us to the idea of diversity and inclusion.
DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION Diversity and Inclusion in the technological area has been an unabated topic for discussion these days, as people are realizing the impacts of the lack of diversity in the technical fields. More specifically speaking of computing sector, a lot of advancements have come up lately and face recognition was one such. "There are police departments in the United States using Amazon’s facial recognition technology, Rekognition. And Amazon pitched the solution to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as well. But facial recognition is a potentially dangerous technology given the potential for bias (based on race, gender, sexuality, etc)."-quoted by the SD times. Machine learning and artificial intelligence are two promising developments which are finding its way of growth now. And we are not sure how this is going to influence all of the lives, by all -I meant ALL, each and everyone. Coming into the real discussion, what actually is diversity? Diversity is the wide range of things which are different from one another. When it comes to the diversity in work-place, the vast area of its meaning shrinks into: group of people with diverse backgrounds may it be social, racial, economical or political. Apparently, the involvement of unique individuals in the work-team is to ensure that problems and issues that may arise, as part of a particular tech concept, from all different backgrounds and perspectives, are being addressed and properly found a solution. A vast majority of us define diversity by a few categories based on gender, race, community, religion, national origin, physical disabilities, etc. Now let us try to examine the reasons for such a diversity gap. This gap is remarkable when it comes to gender and race. A prominent observation made here is that the women representation in areas of employment is considerably low compared to the men-representation.Why is this happening? Even when the number of female college students have seen an increase, not much improvement in the professional employees level is noticeable. While questioning this, people often say the backdrop of female workers is due to the so called 'glass ceiling' which gets built-up above their lives, in course of time. But this is not the reality. The major reasons are the differential and unequal treatment; the unconscious biases and the lack of support. A female student after her education entering into a job sector faces series of unequal treatment from her co-workers which will gradually repress her confidence. And more of more they do not expect a woman co-worker to perform better or equally good compared to them; all these pave way to the unconscious bias among employees. Apart from this, another point stands-out here: 'the broken rung concept' which pulls the women sector down from the reaching heights in the corporate and technical world. Then comes the kind of glass ceiling problem adding to these adversities - the piled up family responsibilities, pressures, the involvement of society talks and thoughts, lack of family-support, etc. Summing up all these, leaves no choice for them other than making them quit. Somewhat similar is the condition of people of color difference. Recent statistics and studies reveal the realistic side of all these complications.
The fact is crystal clear here - the unconscious bias and the unfair treatment of the employees. It's time to break this chain, so as to assure both co-existence and sustainability of the employees.
Inclusion means to form a group out-of this diversity which incorporates not just a mere participation or membership but equal and active involvement of the members. This word identifies the need of accepting and respecting the ideologies and perceptions of individuals despite their differences. Diversity and Inclusion are two entirely different words which when implemented together will provide a beneficiary and satisfactory success in the respective job sectors. If the problems with diversity and inclusion are not solved quickly enough, the new-new technologies will lose its importance and value; and most probably, thus is going to create a chance for disputes between categories which will eventually lead to complete destruction of advancements and deterioration of the work environment.
POSSIBLE DO-s So what could we possibly do to solve these issues, as part of a tech-society? The sole intention is to completely wipe out the discrimination and biases among the employees in job sector; also to equip the under-represented categories with capability, confidence and commitment. The first change that could be brought up is in the hiring procedures. A company should rather try to attract and gather diverse people in its firm, than just focusing on the competency of the corporate world. The entire piece could be modified due to their presence. While considering this situation from the sight of a co-worker, one thing we can do is to support other employees and to ensure that they get fair and just treatment. Free ourselves and also others from biases and make them realize the value of talents within an individual. Spread awareness against unconscious biases, so as to mitigate and eradicate its worse impacts.
A drastic change is to happen so as to improve the current scenario. The highlighting fact is that - maybe we can be the change. A promising future for the employees - a productive work environment where each and every individual will experience equal and fair treatment, let's dream for it and work for it, because 'we are in this together'!
Let's keep up our country's, mother India's, motto 'UNITY IN DIVERSITY'!
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