Why India’s tech future needs more women at the helm

This article is authored by Shreya Krishnan, managing director, AnitaB.org India.

For decades, the conversation around women in technology and leadership has been a numbers game. We have meticulously tracked enrolment ratios, attrition rates, and representation in entry-level cohorts. But as we stand at the cusp of an AI-driven revolution, we need to move beyond counting heads to understanding, who is shaping the tech that shapes our lives.

Women empowerment (Voices of Youth)

When women are absent from the rooms where algorithms are written and products are designed, the bias is not malicious. It is systemic. It sneaks into facial recognition software that fails on darker skin tones, into voice assistants that misunderstand female cadences, and into healthcare AI that overlooks cardiac symptoms unique to women. The interplay of these dynamics is subtle, but the impact is profound. And in India, where we are building digital public infrastructure for over a billion people, we cannot afford these glaring blind spots.

Globally, the picture is sobering. Women hold only about 25% of computing roles and an even smaller fraction of C-suite positions. According to the recent Jan 2026 EY report, in India, despite producing nearly 40% of the world’s STEM graduates, their participation in the core tech workforce remains stubbornly low, with the gender gap widening considerably at senior levels.

This is not just a pipeline problem, it is a preservation problem, and a massive missed opportunity for India. We are not losing women at the point of entry; we are losing them at the point of growth, due to unconscious bias, unequal pay, limited leadership opportunities, and the burden of domestic work as an unshared responsibility.

There is also a persistent myth that leadership is about aggression and 24/7 availability. The data suggests otherwise. Research shows that gender-diverse boards drive greater profitability, increase accountability, and bring disruptive innovation. Moving from 0% to 30% female leadership in the C-suite is associated with a significant increase in profitability. When women lead, they bring a different kind of capital, which is empathy and compassion. These are not soft skills. They are rigorous design and management intelligence. When a woman leader has navigated caregiving responsibilities or the mental load of a double day, she builds teams and products differently.

Women-led teams prioritise privacy with dignity, building AI that feels intuitive without being invasive. They obsess over moments where technology should step back and let humanity step forward.

The EY report highlights that AI-driven upskilling is increasing women's participation in the ecosystem, with GenAI course enrolments surging 195% year-on-year in 2025. When women lead this tech, they ensure it augments human capability rather than erasing human connection.

We also have to look at human interventions. The everyday biases in performance reviews, the assumed incompetence when a woman speaks with authority, and the cultural load of being the "only one" in the room. These are structural leakages in the talent pipeline. They require deliberate, gender intelligent leadership training across genders. Allies, including men, must be part of this landscape. We cannot solve for women without engaging everyone who designs systems, hires teams, and allocates resources.

The opportunity before us is immense. India is digitising at an unprecedented scale. But if we build that future with only half the population's perspectives, we are building it on a weak foundation. Women's participation is not a charitable goal. It is a competitive advantage. Diverse teams build better products, safer systems, and more resilient organisations.

The time for incremental change is over. We need bold pathways from grassroots coding clubs in rural districts to boardroom policies that mandate pay transparency and anti-harassment accountability. We need funding, policy, and community acting in concert.

Because when we design for women, we design for everyone. And that is the India we should be building.

(The views expressed are personal)

This article is authored by Shreya Krishnan, managing director, AnitaB.org India.