There are no words for how excited, thankful and awe-struck we are after closing the applications for our remote software development program, deploy(impact).
This is the third year in succession that we are running deploy(impact) and it was never as in-demand as in 2023. This year we received a total of 1229 applications, which is a 181% increase from last year!
So why is this program so special?
- Everyone who participates up-skills: Participants develop new skills and gain real-life tech project experience… for free.
- It impacts the world positively: Teams work on projects for social causes from non-profit organizations that actually make a difference in the world.
- You build a whole product from scratch: Participants work in agile, multidisciplinary teams from concept to MVP.
- It focuses on real diversity: What we look for during the selection process is building truly diverse teams in all ways: backgrounds, experience level, personality types and more. We know that diversity of mind is what matters!
We conducted over 150 interviews and were overwhelmed by the sheer motivation, skill level and creativity our applicants showed. So, even though we grew the number of participants this year to 75 (up by 25%), it was still tremendously difficult to make the final selection.
Let’s look at some numbers, shall we?
Years of experience
15% of our participants are about to get their first hands-on experience with deploy(impact) or have been in a tech role for less than one year. We’re happy to help them kick-start their career. And we have more than enough help to do that since 21% of the participants are experts in tech with 7+ years of experience. We’re making sure that the teams are composed of diverse levels of experience.
Gender diversity
One of the reasons women++ was founded is to support gender diversity. Women are still considered a minority in the tech field, so we are happy to see that this year 76% of our participants are women.
Nationalities and residence
The nationalities at deploy(impact) are just as diverse as in the women++ team itself. One of the benefits of deploy(impact) is the fact that we can run this initiative remotely, making it possible for participants living all over the world to join us. And while we encourage people from everywhere to apply, our ability to offer additional support to participants who live in Switzerland, means that we try to have a healthy amount of Switzerland residents in the mix. This year, participants living in 15 countries are taking part with 67% of all participants living in Switzerland. What’s more… a whopping 32 nationalities are represented in deploy(impact).
This year’s success wouldn’t have been possible without our amazing women++ team who work very hard to promote and make our initiatives successful.
Big thank you to them and also to those people and sponsoring companies that make this event possible: Zalando, Capgemini and Constructor Academy, Pro Juventute and Powercoders.
We can’t wait to get to work with our amazing participants, team and sponsors. Let’s support diverse talent together!
About the author:
Eszter Rosta is a Social Media & Marketing Manager at women++. She is a creative and dedicated storyteller with good organizational skills. She’s passionate about digital marketing, writing and traveling. She likes working in a team just as much as getting tasks she can work on independently. She’s gained various experiences in different roles and countries before, and it looks like she found her place in the marketing industry in Switzerland.
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