Umaima Haider, Lecturer, University of East London, was a recent participant on our panel discussion where she talked about women in data centres from an academic perspective. Here she highlights the need for the industry to collaborate more closely with the education sector to increase practical understanding and exposure and ultimately encourage more women to take up a career in this field.
What is the first step towards a career in data centres and how can young women pave a path to success?
Have confidence in your abilities and the knowledge that you can succeed. Ignore what people say about it being a male-dominated industry – if you have the ability and work hard you will succeed irrespective of it being a male-dominated field.
In terms of paving a path to success, you need to focus on both the technical aspects and the non-technical aspects. From a technical perspective, you should have a solid educational foundation. I’m not saying you need to have a master’s, or a PhD, but you need a solid foundation and the relevant skills.
You can gain the skills through internships and training programmes – there are online courses available, particularly for data centres and some industries are introducing these courses daily.
From a non-technical perspective, you need to be active on social media in this digital era. Don’t hesitate to connect with senior people on LinkedIn who have been in the data centre industry for a while.
I’d also recommend attending industry events that take place in all corners of the world every year. Speak to the people that inspire you who are doing talks at the event.
Lastly, I would recommend connecting with the female leaders of the data centre industry – this can be via LinkedIn or in person at industry events. They are always ready and willing to help you out and be a listening ear.
How critical is the education sector for determining the future of data centres?
Extremely critical. Education has a critical role to play in the future of data centres and it’s important we generate the talent. It’s about creating training and workforce development opportunities which start at the education level.
Considering the amount of research and innovation being introduced to the data centre space regarding energy efficiency and sustainability processes, as well as AI capabilities, these ideas and innovations all result – directly or indirectly – from academia.
We can also help to encourage women at the education level to adopt STEM careers. If women have a STEM degree and wish to enter the data centre industry, they can hit the ground running compared to those coming from a non-STEM background.
People are still unsure of how to get into STEM because they haven’t been taught about the data centre industry in school. From my perspective, if you want to reach the leadership level within data centres, you need to take up a career in STEM and we as an industry need to do more to promote this and raise awareness of the wide-ranging possibilities it offers.
From an academic perspective, how can we encourage more young women to take up a career in this field and why is this important?
We need to share the success stories of females in the data centre space. We need to consider how they balance their personal life and their professional life. We need to bring women together to share their experiences with one another and a way of achieving this could be via networking opportunities at industry events where female leaders can unite.
What key messaging should we be communicating with young women and students to highlight the opportunities/benefits/advantages of being part of this community?
This is a field that is ever growing, particularly because of AI, and I don’t see this growth trajectory slowing down any time soon. The great thing about this industry is that it requires such a diverse range of expertise – whether you’re from a computing background or a mechanical, electrical or civil engineering background, there is something for everyone. There is also the option to transfer your skills within the industry, rather than switching to another organisation. There is always an opportunity to learn and to broaden your skillset and it’s a fascinating industry to be a part of.
What sorts of challenges do you face as an academic when raising awareness to your students about this crucial industry and the need to appeal to more women?
There are several challenges we face but there are becoming less and less compared to when I entered the industry eight years ago. In the UK, we lack in providing a good curriculum related to data centres. I’m only aware of a couple of universities in the UK that would teach data centres as a separate module or at a high level.
Even at my university, seven or eight years ago we didn’t teach anything data centre-related. Now, I lead the cloud computing module where I have over 500 students per term. The curriculum is designed in a way that I can introduce more data centre aspects into it and if just one of those 500 students takes up a career in data centres, that’s a big achievement for us.
The other challenge I face is students often request to see how data centres work in-practice. During the last academic term, I reached out to many data centre operators and they opened their doors to us. If there are any data centre operators willing to do the same, particularly in London, we have lots of students who are keen to get involved and will be more likely to take up a career in data centres after having practical exposure.
View the video interview with Umaima here.