Celebrating diversity and equality - Cegal finalist for the ODA Champions Award 2024

Cegal was one of the three finalists for the ODA Champions Award 2024. The nomination acknowledges Cegal's commitment to promoting gender diversity, inclusion, and equity, not only within our organization but also across the industry and throughout society.

On Thursday, June 6, the ODA Network held its annual Inspiration Day, which includes the ODA Awards in four different categories. The Inspiration Day celebrates diversity, gender equality, and women in the technology industry. The event sold out in just a few days and this year's theme for the day was "Decoding Decisions".

Finalist for ODA Champion Awards

Cegal was among the three nominees for the ODA Champion Awards 2024, along with Frontkom and Evidi who emerged victorious. Congratulations Evidi!

ODA-Network cites Cegal's long-standing commitment to equality, diversity, and fairness as the reason for our selection as an ODA Champion finalist. They highlight our initiatives such as Women@Cegal and the Sustainability Award, as well as our strategy for inclusive hiring practices and how this is embedded in management.

ODA-Network writes:

Cegal works hard to achieve diversity internally, and shares its experiences with other companies, both inside and outside the IT industry through the ODA Network and Equality Check, among others.

ODA-Network continues: "By actively promoting openness and collaboration, Cegal is a reference point for how to develop inclusive workplaces and create positive change in the technological landscape. Cegal's focus on diversity also helps to improve customer solutions. Through collaborations like Microsoft Energy Data Services, we show how different perspectives provide more efficient and better services. This results in better experiences for both employees and customers."

Inspired to make diverse decisions

• "Decisions That Affect a Whole Country" with Espen Nakstad.
• "From Data to Decisions: How to leverage AI for better health outcomes" with doctor Ishita Barua.
• "Summit or Survive: How to Make the Right Decisions in Life-or-Death Situations" with Swedish adventurer Renata Chlumska.
• "The Power and Pitfalls of Human Decision Making in the Tech Era" with psychologist Nils Tore Meland.
• "Are we tapping into diversity potential in decision making?" with CEO Manav Kumar.

Manav Kumar has helped develop "The Diversity Index", a tool that measures the impact of diversity in companies and possibly why companies fail to reap the expected effects of having a broad diversity of employees. Kumar gave a broader perspective on what diversity is. Diversity is usually measured by different genders, skin colors, cultural backgrounds, and so on. Kumar, who is from India and lives in Norway, emphasized that you need to be aware of what "type" of diversity you need for which tasks. At the same time, you have to be willing to show your difference in the company. Otherwise, there is a great risk that the diversity that exists in the company will not emerge, whether it is other cultures, opinions, points of view, or something else.

Kumar emphasized that all companies should search for the competence that exists in diversity rather than settling for diversity representation. "Diversity does not automatically lead to more value creation, but the potential is there. If companies are to take advantage of this, it requires conscious and structured work to ensure that they reap the benefits of diversity.

Diversity and equality - a key part of our social responsibility

Being among the finalists for the ODA Champion Award shows that Cegal's long-standing work for equality, inclusion, and diversity is bearing fruit. Promoting diversity, fairness, inclusion, and belonging is a key part of our corporate social responsibility.

In 2023, the proportion of women among new employees in Cegal was 30 percent, up from 14 percent in 2020. At the same time, the proportion of women in the management team increased from 11 to 50 percent. Today, five out of nine senior managers in Cegal are women. We have several internal initiatives to promote gender equality and diversity. Women@Cegal is a network that supports women in their personal and professional development and works to increase gender diversity and inclusion in our organization and in the technology industry.

Diversity makes for better technology

It is important to get more women and more diversity into the technology industry. The diversity in society should also be reflected among developers. There are too many examples of fundamental flaws in technological solutions because they were created by a uniform group of developers. For example, voice control that doesn’t understand women's voices—or face recognition that cannot distinguish between different dark faces.

To ensure diversity and equality in the company, Cegal works hard and structured. Cegal's CEO Dagfinn Ringaas explains:
“The golden diversity mix involves differences in gender, age, experience, cultural background, and personality. That’s the foundation for a dynamic way of working that can be very positive. But to achieve this, we must make the industry an even better place to be for more groups so that they can flourish here. We must sell all the meaningful and good things technology can be used for and how cool and exciting it is to work with this.

Ringaas continues: “We have to look much harder for women and people who differ from the average technologist. I often get feedback that they don't exist, but they do. You just have to look harder, perhaps in other places, and a little differently, to find them.”

In 2021, our CEO Dagfinn Ringås himself won the ODA Awards Man prize for his work on gender equality.

The proportion of women in the technology industry in Norway is approximately 29 percent, up from 17 percent in 2016. The proportion of female managers in IT companies is 33 percent.

Cegal is proud to be a driving force for change and looks forward to continuing our work for a more inclusive and diverse technology industry.