Sigma Software Won the Partnership for Sustainability Award 2023

Partnership for Sustainability Award is an annual international campaign, in which the UN Global Compact Ukraine celebrates the best projects implemented in partnership between business, government, and civil society and aimed at achieving Sustainable Development Goals, protecting the environment, solving social challenges, and promoting peace.

Sigma Software stands for equality and gender balance and is proud that our team includes 35%  women (vs. around 23% in average in Ukraine and 30% globally) and 50% in our executive team.

We keep working on attracting women in the IT industry.

In 2022, we decided to boost the Danir’s Femmegineering project and scale it to the emerging European tech markets.

Alexandra Govorukha, Head of Global Affairs at Sigma Software and Femmegineering Project Lead, switched to the IT industry 7 years ago, and based on her journey, she understands the challenges that women face building a career in the technology industry.

“Since most of the displaced people who fled from Ukraine are women, they became sole breadwinners for their families. That is why, in 2022 we decided to encourage and empower women to join tech sector and build a successful career. Femmengineering provides practical help to families affected by the war through creating opportunities for women in tech. For this, we give practical tools that will help them to become independent, develop themselves and grow,” says Alexandra.

Femmengineering is a complex project which includes three main elements:

1. Inspiring female stories (to encourage),
2. A series of knowledge sharing events (to unite and encourage),
3. Educational courses (to empower).

“Femmengineering unites its participants around knowledgesharing practices from female professionals, engaging with female opinion leaders. Also, thanks to our partners support, we made successful women’s career stories public and visible in the media”, comments Alexandra.

Sigma Software organized meetups for women in Poland, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Portugal attracting top-notch experts from the leading tech companies. The topics covered Software Testing, Career Growth, Project Management, Business Analysis, etc. Femmegineering held a special meetup within Women in Tech Summit, one of the biggest events in Poland aimed at ensuring gender balance and attracting over 8000 attendees.

Our great specialists have shared their stories of becoming developers and managers in tech. These stories helped many girls and young women to follow their passion for IT and ignore biases and stereotypes they still face in society and even in their families.

The stories of our heroines were published on external media, the Sigma Software blog, and social media, to promote and inspire women in tech. To maintain the emerging community, we launched WhatsApp community groups.

As a practical support initiative for women who start their IT careers, Sigma Software University granted free access to educational courses on Business Analysis and From Idea to Product. Over 300 women got this opportunity.

We also support the STEM girls community through mentoring and meetings. Gender balance activities and Femmegineering are a part of the company’s CSR strategy.

Julia Ostroukh, Head of HR Department at Sigma Software, who received the award on behalf of the company, says:

“For Sigma Software, people are the top priority. We strive to help our specialists fulfill their dreams and develop their talents by building career paths, providing education opportunities, and fighting everything that stands in their way. Things like stereotypes and biases. With Femmegineering project, we shared true and honest stories of women reaching their professional goals, proving their skills and abilities. I hope that our colleagues, who agreed to tell everybody their stories, will become role models for girls thinking about a profession in the tech area.”

About Partnership for Sustainability Award

The award was founded in 2018. Its goal is to unite stakeholders around Global Goal 17 — “Partnership for Goals”. The award is held annually. The exception was in 2022, the beginning of russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Today, we all realize the value of partnership as never before. Ukraine has confronted Russian aggression, just as the world has united to help Ukrainians withstand the struggle.

The campaign Partnership for Sustainability Award is international. In past years the award united over 300 representatives from Ukraine, Germany, Poland, North Macedonia, Georgia, and Turkey. The international community is doing a lot to support Ukrainians today, and UNGC Ukraine wants to recognize the best practices.