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make software,” Shojaee says. She does not have<br />
a background in IT or software development but<br />
earned a PhD in physical therapy. She entered<br />
the tech industry the day she met her husband,<br />
Hamid Shojaee, founder of Axosoft. He turned the<br />
company over to her in 2014 and stepped away<br />
(but only a few steps, literally) to run his startup,<br />
Pure Chat.<br />
There are many models for companies dealing<br />
with a conglomerate of techie-minds collaborating<br />
on projects. The challenge of getting everyone in<br />
one place and keeping them happy has been taken<br />
on by Apple, Google, Yahoo! and many other tech<br />
giants, with varying degrees of success. Axosoft<br />
is a smaller company—with 50 employees<br />
currently—but they have a unique approach to<br />
employee satisfaction, a system that Shojaee<br />
designed herself.<br />
When asked directly: How do we get more<br />
women into tech? she answers that a big step is<br />
simply hiring more women. But the challenge of<br />
finding them is not so simple. “We have diversity<br />
programs. But what does that really mean? First<br />
you need diversity in the field for these programs<br />
to work,” Shojaee says. To solve the problem of<br />
lack of representation, she suggest that we move<br />
one step further back and get more girls interested<br />
in pursuing technology studies in school. She is<br />
working with community members, educators and<br />
scientists to address why girls drop out of techand<br />
science-focused curriculums much earlier than<br />
boys. “We work on hiring more, and we work on<br />
educating them younger,” she says.<br />
Last year, under the smart guidance of artist,<br />
provocateur and monologist Tania Katan, Axosoft’s<br />
current “evangelist” and “code curator,” the<br />
company launched the #ItWasNeverADress<br />
social media campaign to urge more women to<br />
enter the tech industry. The idea co-opted the<br />
international symbol for woman (the familiar icon<br />
used on public restrooms), and highlighted the<br />
dress portion, showing it instead as a superhero<br />
cape. Since then, the idea has taken on a life<br />
of its own, going viral and getting international<br />
recognition and support.<br />
Shojaee is on the board of Girls in Tech<br />
(girlsintech.org), and Axosoft lent much<br />
support at the Girls in Tech Catalyst<br />
Conference held this past April at the<br />
Palomar Hotel in downtown Phoenix. (Axosoft<br />
14 JAVA<br />
MAGAZINE