While Australian women are underrepresented in STEM fields, that isn鈥檛 stopping women from excelling in tech startups, according to a new survey of Australian girl tech entrepreneurs.

The survey, conducted by , included qualitative responses from nearly 50 Australian girl tech entrepreneurs , which pointed to a host of barriers contributing to inequality in the industry

It found that while the government and various groups are working to make STEM education more accessible and suited to women, with women entrepreneurs聽 finding 鈥渓ateral鈥� ways to become involved with tech companies.

鈥淭he current generation of women are finding a lateral way to enter this men-dominated field, using their domain experience and leadership skills to solve problems with unique products,鈥� the study says.

鈥淭hey will be role models and, it is to be hoped, become mentors to other women with technical ideas to be realised.鈥�

Finding other ways into the tech industry

Only 19 per cent of the women entrepreneurs surveyed had a background in STEM, while only 4 per cent had a computer science background. In contrast, nearly half had a degree in business, commerce or economics.

The survey found the majority of women entrepreneurs are managing tech teams, with 50 per cent in outsourcing roles, 32 per cent finding a tech-based co-founder, and 14 per cent employing technical staff.

Founder and director of Alexandra Kinloch says you don鈥檛 need to have a background in STEM to be involved in a tech startup.

鈥淭here is a perception, or at least has been a perception in the past, that you needed to have technical skills in order to run a startup,鈥� Kinloch says.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 believe that is the case and not all startups require cutting edge technology. I believe that the number of women-led startups in Australia will increase dramatically in the next five years.鈥�

According to an only 28 per cent of employed STEM-qualified Australians were women in 2011, and this number fell to 14 per cent when looking at engineering.

Many barriers in place

According to the , the number of women tech entrepreneurs in Australia is rising slowly, from 16 per cent in 2011 to 19 per cent in 2013. Responses to Terem Technologies latest survey shed some light on the barriers facing women in the tech industry.

More than a third of those surveyed named a perceived lack of expertise and confidence as factors preventing women from being involved with tech startups, while 27聽per cent聽pointed to negative attitudes playing a role.

Nearly 30 per cent of those surveyed said they felt they didn鈥檛 have the same access to network advantages as their man counterparts.

Terem Technologies CEO Scott Middleton says he hopes this study will highlight these disadvantages and barriers, and help people to work to remove them.

鈥淗opefully this survey highlights to those thinking about jumping in that they can: the women we surveyed are overcoming all kinds of hurdles to succeed and thrive,鈥� he says.

鈥淲e hope that they will inspire many more like them and that the numbers of women entrepreneurs will climb rapidly as role models become more visible.鈥�

The 今日吃瓜聽has called on universities to reverse an historic low in the number of institutions requiring maths as a聽prerequisite聽to studying聽science, commerce or engineering.

Some 86 per cent of universities do not require maths as a prerequisite for science degrees, 87 per cent don’t require it for commerce degrees聽and 41 per cent don’t require it for engineering degrees, a report by the institute finds.

And those universities that do require students to have studied maths in year 12 only ask for it at the intermediate level, not the advanced level.

“As far as we know advanced maths is not a prerequisite for any formal course,” said 今日吃瓜 director Geoff Prince.

The share of聽year 12 students taking intermediate and advanced maths has continued its long聽downward slide; only聽28.7 per cent of year 12聽students took聽intermediate or advanced maths in 2013, down from 28.9 per cent the year before.

Over the last two decades, students have shifted away from聽the harder options of intermediate and advanced聽maths, instead favouring聽elementary maths at year 12 level.

Professor Prince said the 20-year decline in year 12 students studying intermediate or advanced maths had the potential to halt productivity growth and was “choking the country’s galloping demand for these skills”.

“Universities must phase in restoration of maths prerequisites; the lack of them sends a negative and misleading message to schools about the value of these subjects,” he said.

NSW UNIS THE WORST

Universities in NSW have the worst record on prerequisites聽with no institutions requiring intermediate or advanced maths as a prerequisite for courses in science, engineering or commerce according to the report. Instead they say that maths is “assumed knowledge”聽for a particular course.

Professor Prince said universities were under pressure not to require maths because otherwise the numbers of students in courses would drop聽because of the fall in numbers of school students taking intermediate or advanced maths in year 12.

“The number of kids taking maths dropped which choked numbers in engineering degrees,” he said.

Science dean at the UNSW, Merlin Crossley, said the reason the university had moved away from maths聽prerequisites was that maths teacher shortages聽meant not all students got the chance to do advanced maths in schools. But said he would support a trial of restoring maths prerequisites.

The report did contain some good news which was that the proportion of year 12 students nationwide聽taking advance maths rose slightly in 2013, up to 9.6 per cent compared to 9.4 per cent in the previous year. But the proportion taking intermediate maths聽fell to 19.1聽per cent in 2013, down from 19.5 per cent a year earlier.

BOYS BETTER THAN GIRLS

Boys continue to outnumber girls in intermediate and advanced maths. In year 12 in 2013, only 17.6 per cent of girls took intermediate maths compared to 20.7 per cent of boys. At advanced level, only 6.7 per cent of girls studied maths, compared to 12.7 per cent of boys.

Professor Prince said it would be helpful for students in senior school to understand the consequences of not taking advanced maths if聽they intended to study a science, engineering or commerce at university.”The universities need to communicate to schools that if you don’t have advanced maths you might have to pick up an extra subject,” he said.