News
TechnoPro Holdings, Inc. Signs Partner Agreement with Waffle; Closing the Gender Gap in the STEM Field and Promoting Diversity
Mar 29, 2022
TechnoPro Holdings, Inc. (Minato-ku, Tokyo: Takeshi Yagi, President, Representative Director and CEO) has announced to enter into a partnership agreement with Waffle (Shibuya-ku, Tokyo: Sayaka Tanaka, CEO; Asumi Saito, Co-Founder), a general incorporated association in Japan. Waffle has a vision to close the gender gap through technology education and empowerment of women, whereas supporting them to play active role in the field of STEM.
(*STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.)
Background of the Partnership Agreement
As indicated by shortage of domestic engineers, progress in technologies and designing methodology, accelerating digitalization and intensifying global competition, the environment surrounding us is constantly changing. Especially, the TechnoPro Group, as one of the Japan’s largest engineering talent and service company, offers variety of services leveraging technologies such as fulltime engineer staffing service, technology consulting, outsourcing and project-type services, placement services, engineer training business, thus the Group considers the chronic and structural shortage of engineers in Japan as a risk which could have direct impact on its business. Therefore, focusing on human resources such as women, elderly people and foreign nationals, and providing opportunities where they can actively participate in the market is important for us to grow further for the future. For this reason, we aim to increase the percentage of female management and number of female employees as one of our materialities. Furthermore, we also consider the development of female talents in the STEM field a necessary and meaningful initiative not only for the Group but also for the entire society.
Mr. Yagi, CEO, TechnoPro, Holdings)
Waffle has a mission to unlock women’s potential by empowering and educating women, and is actively developing its activities including offering more opportunities of education in the fields of IT and technologies for those such as junior and senior high school girls. These activities have much in common with the Group’s materialities and purpose. Waffle and the Group have come to believe that our close alliance will enable more diverse approaches to expand the place where women can be more active and also solve the shortage of engineers, and that has led us to sign the Partner Agreement.
Takeshi Yagi, President, Representative Director and CEO, TechnoPro Holdings, Inc. said: “I am truly delighted to have a partnership with Waffle, and look forward to collaborating with them on a variety of initiatives in the future. More than 4,000 of over 20,000 engineers and researchers in the TechnoPro Group are women, as such we believe that we are well positioned to convey, based on the real experiences the Group accumulated, useful information, the fun and sense of achievement of jobs to the female students of junior and senior high school and universities who participate in the events organized by Waffle. In addition, the TechnoPro Group has the best-of-the-industry training programs with more than 200,000 participants per year and talent development expertise, so we are expecting to work together to promote STEM education for the society.”
About Waffle
Waffle is a NPO which aims to close the gender gap in the IT field, providing “Waffle Camp,” an online IT course focusing on coding to primarily junior and high school girls in Japan. Waffle also supports “Technovation Girls,” a pitch competition event, and organizes various events in cooperation with private companies. In March 2022, the NPO launched “Waffle College” mainly for female undergraduate and graduate students interested in IT field careers. In addition, Waffle engages in policy recommendations including public comments for the 5th Basic Plan for Gender Equality adopted by the Japanese Cabinet. Waffle received “SDGs Partnership Award” at the 4th Japan SDGs Award in 2020.
Website：https://congrant.com/project/Waffle/3320
About TechnoPro Group
TechnoPro Group is Japan’s largest technology-focused staffing and service corporate group, with 23,599 engineers and researchers (20,776 Japanese and 2,823 foreign nationals as of Dec. 2021) in Japan, China, Southeast Asia, India, the UK, and other locations. The Group is recognized for its expertise across a broad range of specialties, covering nearly every area of technology considered necessary in Japanese industry. These fields include machinery, electric/electronic and engineering, information systems, chemistry, biotechnology, medicine, construction, and civil engineering. The Group provides a variety technology-based services to more than 2,500 companies, universities, and research institutions in Japan and overseas.