DOI: 10.28934/jwee19.34.pp73-85 JEL: I240, J710, O15, O150 PRELIMINARY REPORTS Sustainable Development through Gender Equality – A Case of Higher Education of Data Scientists Olivera Grljević 1 Zita Bošnjak 2 Saša Bošnjak 3 University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Economics, Department of Business Informatics and Quantitative Methods, Subotica, Serbia A B S T R A C T Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector in Serbia is fast growing and in constant high demand for qualified workforce. In order to continu- ously fulfil the demand, the National strategy for gender equality defined as one of the actions, requalification of the unemployed women for different ICT profiles. Investing in education is the policy of creating human capital that influences the overall development of the society. Women empowerment through education is recognized as one of the prerequisites for sustainable ICT workforce generation. Data science represents particularly important field of ICT which is still in its de- velopment phase in Serbia. All industries with transaction-based processes and industries that use connected or mobile devices or similar, which generate high volumes of data on a daily basis can benefit from application of data science in terms of increased profits and ROI. While developing data science in Serbia and during the peak of productivity in the overall ICT sector, it is important to acknowledge the lack of women in technology, why that is detrimental to progres- 1 Segedinski put 9-11, Subotica, Serbia, e-mail: oliverag@ef.uns.ac.rs, tel.+381 24 628116 2 Segedinski put 9-11, Subotica, Serbia, e-mail: bzita@ef.uns.ac.rs, tel.+381 24 628045 3 Segedinski put 9-11, Subotica, Serbia, e-mail: bsale@ef.uns.ac.rs, tel.+38124628004