Women may be underrepresented in the telecommunications sector , but they have always been a part of it : from wartime Hollywood movie star Hedy Lamarr co-inventing frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology , which laid the groundwork for Wi-Fi , to ‘ Mother of the Internet ’ Radia Perlman ’ s work on data transmission . Yet at present , women make up about 28 % of the global technology workforce . Efforts are being made to increase female representation , especially in leadership positions . Here , three women tell us about their career journeys across the mobile sector and suggest what needs to be done to make the industry more diverse – and therefore successful …