BELONGin business plan

Abstract

Gender equality (SDG5) is one of the 17 sustainable development goals adopted by all United Nations member states. SDG5 involves topics such as women representation in leadership roles, violence against women and equal pay. Two years ago, Austria came in 3rd to last in the EU when it comes to equal pay (Clark, 2021). Moreover, only 9% of management positions in top 200 Austrian companies are represented by women (Haager, Wieser, & Steinbach, 2021: p.3). Also, only 17% of the tech workforce in Austria is represented by women (“2018 Women in Tech Index,” 2018). Shockingly, close to 50% of these women end up leaving the tech domain mid-career and it happens at double the rate than men do (Ashcraft, McLain, & Eger, 2016).The underlying thesis researches how companies can become more attractive to women tech professionals and at the same time drive down the number of women leaving the tech industry. The answer is presented in the form of a business plan written about the social startup called BELONGin (www.BELONGin.work). At the same time, the thesis details how a lean design thinking model was used to develop the BELONGin business model over the period of one year.BELONGin helps companies become workplaces where people want to belong by offering two different products: the Tech Talent Magnet and the Gender Equality in Tech Award. While the Tech Talent Magnet product focuses on solving a company’s problem of finding fitting tech professionals, the Gender Equality in Tech Award product is designed with one impact mission in mind: lower the percentage of women leaving tech mid-career.