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Silicon Valley companies combined are now worth over a trillion dollars and their success is unmatched. These companies have solved thousands of problems people around the world faced. But there is one problem that continues to plague Silicon Valley itself, a problem these inventors can't seem to fix: a lack of gender diversity.

A majority of Silicon Valley companies are male dominated and those that have good female ratios generally employ women to lower positions. Given the hierarchies in place, it might be difficult to narrow down the gender gap in the next 10 years.

In Pakistan, the technology industry is still emerging and most companies are yet to mature. We — bytes.pk — are also a young company and over the last few months one of the biggest problems we have encountered is a lack of gender diversity.

We find this to be a very alarming situation, one that needs to be dealt with immediately.

At bytes.pk, around 90% of our staff is male and we intend to bring that ratio to 50% in the next 3-6 months. We are not only looking to bring more women into the workplace, we also want to promote women vendors who can work from home — even run companies that grow from their homes.

Pakistan has lagged behind other countries in many technology trends. Perhaps by countering this global trend and evening out the gender ratio in the technology sector Pakistan can set an example for the rest of the world.

In my experience, women bring something to the workplace men can't.

One of the biggest changes I noticed when we hired our first female employee was a change in men's attitudes with women around. They started carrying themselves better, became more respectful in the workplace and the work environment as a whole changed.

Women bring skill sets that are unique to them. I believe a company can only reach its potential if the workplace has a balanced gender ratio.

In Pakistan one of the key obstacles to women not opting for jobs is their inability to leave their homes. And even though in the technology sector working from home is very common, it is troubling to see only a few women in the industry.

Pakistan is one of the leading markets for freelance work. But even that is male dominated.

Changing attitudes and trends in this regard is essential because as the industry matures, the task will become more and more difficult.

Bytes.pk has decided to play its part in bringing about this change by hiring more women, training them by offering free basic IT classes and making our workplace more women friendly.

This article was written by Mohammed Khanani, CEO and founder of mGadgets and bytes.pk. He is passionate about technology, cricket and everything Pakistani.

Sponsor content: this content is made possible by the sponsor and does not necessarily reflect the views of Dawn.com's editorial staff.