Sistech
Organization Details
Sistech is the leading European non-profit empowering refugee women through access to tech & digital jobs.
The organisation provides weekly mentoring sessions, certified training, and networking activities to dozens of displaced and uprooted women in France, Italy and Greece for free.
Sistech builds partnerships with companies that believe & invest in workplace diversity, connecting them with a pool of talented refugee women who are eager to join their teams.
Impact Story
Sistech was founded by French social entrepreneur Joséphine Goube in 2017 as a spinoff of the organisation Techfugees. She was inspired to create Sistech based on a few, critical observations.
- Refugee women face high unemployment, even years after arriving in their welcoming country and at rates twice that of their male counterparts.
- Furthermore, in order to secure a paycheck, they are often forced to accept jobs for which they are overqualified.
- At the same time, the rapidly-expanding technology and digital industries struggle to recruit and retain talent. This is especially true when it comes to hiring women.
Sistech’s first programme started in Paris, with a simple pilot. It equipped a group of 12 women – at no cost to them – with the technical skills and local job-market knowledge to start a job search. A majority of the women in this original cohort found a professional opportunity. Sistech repeated the experience with a new group in France the following year, and achieved similar results. Confident it could replicate the same success rate with more women, the organisation diversified its programme offering and expanded geographically. Sistech launched its first programmes in Greece and Italy in 2021.
The NGO has gradually built relationships with tech executives who believe that diversity makes their companies more robust and innovative. Partner businesses hire graduates of Sistech’s programmes, help fund operations, and take advantage of volunteer and mentoring opportunities for their employees.
Today, Sistech supports more than 300 refugee women each year, organising mentoring sessions, certified training and networking events.
Diverse Social Enterprise
The TRANSFORM Support Hub is committed to accelerating diverse owned and led enterprises to build more equitable and resilient supply chains.
