Ida Ryland one of Norway's 50 leading tech women
On March 8th, the International Women’s Day, the list of the top 50 tech women in Norwegian business was published. The award is organized and distributed by Abelia (NHO’s association for knowledge and technology companies) and the ODA Network. On the list was Ida Ryland (29) from Computas, developer and manager of Computa’s Trondheim office.
– It is, of course, a great honor to be selected for this award together with an incredible number of talented women. If I can be an inspiration to girls and women who like maths and coding, it makes me both humble and proud, says Ryland.
Ida Ryland holds a Master’s degree in algorithms from the University of Bergen and took part in Computa’s program for summer students in 2016. From there it quickly progressed to permanent employment and challenging assignments at both Aker Solutions, PGS and IKEA. She had an important role concerning Computas’ establishment in Denmark and is now heads Computas’s Trondheim office, which was opened last year.
CEO of Computas, Trond Eilertsen, says that Rylands place on the list is fully deserved.
– Ida is a rock-solid developer that our customers value highly, but has also handled new challenges such as the development of our office in Trondheim, with both a focus on commercial work and personnel management. She has grasped the opportunities she has been given in an impressive way. An excellent representative of the Computas culture, where professional expertise should go hand in hand with creative joy and collaboration, he says.
Aims to inspire the students at NTNU
In his role as manager of the newly established Computas Trondheim, Ryland works both in customer assignments and as professional manager and personnel manager for the employees at the office. She also devotes a lot of time to the student environment at NTNU.
– It it is rewarding to be able to contribute expertise and perspectives from working life in the students’ everyday life and show what opportunities exist with a consulting company like Computas. If I can inspire young women to go for a career in IT, I am very happy about it. Diversity among those who develop digital solutions for business and the public sector is important because we are going to meet a diversity of users, she says.
Still too few women in IT
Since 2016, the proportion of women in the tech sector has increased by a marginal 2.2 percentage points, according to recent figures from Statistics Norway (SSB). Norway’s 50 Best Tech Women is an initiative to highlight talents and role models who can contribute to more people choosing technology careers – also from outside the typical recruitment pool.
Øystein E. Søreide is the managing director of Abelia and the leader of the awards jury. He believes that it is crucial to have diversity among those who create and develop technology.
– It matters who creates the algorithms and writes the code that makes new solutions work. Whether it concerns consumer technology, industrial software or control systems for offshore wind turbines and carbon storage systems. In Norway, we have every opportunity to choose the educations that make us most relevant for the future. But even the Norwegian technology industry is too unidirectional, says the CEO of Abelia, Øystein E. Søreide.
About the award
Abelia, the NHO association for knowledge and technology companies, and ODA-Nettverk, the Nordic region’s leading network for diversity in tech, are behind the award. The purpose is to increase the proportion of women who are passionate about and work with technology. After an open nomination process, the 50 winners have been selected by a jury led by Øystein Eriksen Søreide. The jury emphasizes: how she excels in understanding technology, concrete contributions and achievements and motivation/effort for diversity and inclusion in technology.