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Europe Recognises Top Girls and Women in Digital Fields

“We are girls! We are women! We are strong!” – European Commissioner Gabriel to winners of the 2019 European Ada Awards recognising top female digital talent in Europe

“Take all challenges as opportunities,” advised Ms. Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society, to a group of wide-eyed finalists at the sixth European Ada Awards ceremony organised on 16 October 2019 in Brussels as part of European Code Week and the WomenInTech.Brussels Women Code Festival. The Ada Awards, founded in 2012 by Brussels-based Digital Leadership Institute, promote top girls and women in digital fields in Europe in an effort to increase their numbers, a long-term priority for Commissioner Gabriel that she will carry into her new mission as European Commissioner for Youth and Innovation starting next month.

Commissioner Gabriel officially opened this year’s celebration of the Ada Awards, affectionately named for Countess Ada Lovelace, the world’s first-ever computer programmer, with a message that technology is “a strategic tool for the empowerment of citizens—of women and of men—that we must continue to use to advance ourselves,” she said. The Commissioner counseled those present to spend less time on embellishments and to focus on taking action when a door is opened, saying she would both hold them to task, and committed to supporting them along the way. The Commissioner closed her message praising the hard work and talent demonstrated by the Ada Award finalists and winners, underscoring: “We are girls! We are women! We are strong!”

Following her remarks, Commissioner Gabriel and Ada Award partners from civil society and private sector recognised the 2019 European Ada Award-winners.

2019 European Digital Woman of the Year Award

The 2019 European Ada Award for Digital Woman of the Year was presented by Ms. Kelly Dorekens, CRM Director at Deloitte Belgium, who shared that “diversity in a group matters as much as ability and brainpower,” adding that Deloitte “actively encourages women to embrace science, technology, engineering and math through selected partnerships and events, like the Ada Awards.”

Ms. Dee Saigal, United Kingdom – 2019 European Digital Woman of the Year
Ms. Dee Saigal is Founder, CEO and Creative Director of Erase All Kittens, an adventure game designed to give girls the confidence to code, whilst teaching digital and 21st century skills. Dee’s goal is for EAK is to transform the way children perceive coding and engineering, and empower millions of girls worldwide with transferable, digital skills. Dee shared that her biggest challenge so far, aside from being a woman in tech, has been fundraising for research and development. Her message to other women and girls is to not think tech is for boys or that it is “geeky.” “There are so many amazing careers in tech that are both interesting and challenging,” says Saigal. Now that Erase All Kittens has 150,000 players, her next step is to raise investment in order to be able to build more educational and gamified version to launch globally. Her team is raising £500,000, and are already at twenty percent of that goal.

2019 European Digital Girl of the Year Award

“10 Years and Under” Category:
The 2019 European Ada Award for Digital Girl of the Year in the “10 Years and Under” category was presented by Ms. Afke Schaart, VP and Head of Europe, GSMA. Winner in this category was Tayra, from Bulgaria.

Tayra, from Bulgaria – 2019 European Digital Girl of the Year “10 Years and Under”
Tayra is ten years old and was born in Sofia. She loves coding, and most recently won a special prize at Softunjada Kids with her Scratch project “three bears fairytale,” using sign language for kids. Tayra says the projects she is most proud of are her webpage and her robots. In ten years, she hopes to be a programmer. Her message to other girls who are interested in tech is: “I believe that girls have a power, and the power of technology can change the world for the better, no matter who we are. It is never too late or too early to get involved in tech,” Tayra says.

“11-14 Years Old” Category:

The 2019 European Ada Award for Digital Girl of the Year in the “11-14 Years Old” category was presented by Ms. Christine Marlet, Board Member, Global Wo.Man Hub. Marlet expressed her awe of the candidates saying “the Ada Awards grant the participants the perfect opportunity to enhance their digital dreams. It encourages them to take risks along the way in order to achieve their digital goals because they believe that their objectives are attainable.” She added: “Belief in yourself stems from belief in your role models.” Winner in this category was Selin, from Turkey.

Selin, from Turkey – 2019 European Digital Girl of the Year “11-14 Years Old”
Selin is thirteen years old and loves building robots, coding, animals and travelling. She wants to study robotics and eventually build a humanoid. Selin shared that she was inspired to build her robot dog when her childhood dog passed away. She said “I knew that blind people especially have a strong connection with their dogs. I wanted to help them out, and felt like this was a great way of doing that.” She spends her free time on the weekends working on and improving her robotic guide dog. Looking forward, Selin says “I am currently developing the second version of my dog, and this one will be able to sit, lay down, bark, and it will even do ‘heart eyes’ towards my mom. Currently it’s only programmed to understand English, but I’m hoping for it to learn Chinese soon!”

“15-17 Years Old” Category:
The 2019 European Ada Award for Digital Girl of the Year in the “15-17 Years Old” category was presented by Ms. Viola Pinzi from European Schoolnet. There were two winner in this category: Anne, from Belgium, and Alai-Miranda, from Spain.

Anne, from Belgium – 2019 European Digital Girl of the Year “15-17 Years Old”
Anne is a fifteen-year-old girl who created Clinicoders, an initiative to bring technology and programming to children in hospitals. One of the goals of this project is to encourage children to create solutions for permanently disabled children. Anne said her next steps for Clinicoders are to bring it to a hospital in Antwerp, as it is only currently in Ghent, Belgium. “My dad wants to help bring it to other countries as well. So we’ll see where it goes,” she said. Over time, Clinicoders has developed from an application for children into something for adults too. “We shared this application called ‘Mindstorms’ to adult hospital animators, and it has been a real success.” In terms of her own future, Anne plans on studying law, but definitely wants to continue engaging hospital patients with Clinicoders.

Alai-Miranda from Spain – 2019 European Digital Girl of the Year “15-17 Years Old”
Alai-Miranda’s passion for STEM began when she was seven years old, and it has yet to fade. Most recently, she was invited to speak at the Amazon Web Services Summit in Madrid to discuss her experience as a girl in technology. Alai-Miranda shared about a new project she has begun to work on called “EsVuela.” A combination of the Spanish words “escuela” (school) and “volar” (to fly), the project will educate children on how to fly and program drones. As far as where Alai-Mirand sees herself in ten years, she says: “Hopefully I will have graduated from MIT and will be working in technology at a company, or maybe I will have even started my own company at that point. I hope to be either in the U.S., or maybe in Europe, maybe even still in Spain – somewhere!” As for her experience at the Ada Awards, she said that she feels “inspired to continue talking about and learning technology.”

 

“Gender-Equality and Europe: Fit for the Digital Era?” Panel

The 2019 European Ada Awards ceremony was preceded by a high-level panel on “Gender Equality and Europe: Fit for the Digital Era,” moderated by Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, and including panelists Miss Manon Van Hoorebeke, 2014-2015 Ada Award-winner for European Digital Girl of the Year, Mr. Christian Veske, Stakeholder Relations Coordinator at the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), Ms. Annick Breton Elias, Partner of Deloitte Luxembourg, and Ms. Afke Schaart, Vice President and Head of Europe at GSMA, a global trade association for the mobile industry.

Christian Veske kicked off the panel with a discussion of EIGE’s 2019 Gender Equality Index released this week, the factors contributing to Europe’s score of 67 out of 100, and the increasing importance of promoting gender balance in digital fields. “Women won’t achieve equality until there is digital equality,” agreed Schaart from the GSMA. “Right now, women hold less than twenty percent of jobs in the tech industry, which is why GSMA expanded our Tech4Girls program this year.”

 

At sixteen, Manon Van Hoorebeke shared that winning the Digital Girl of the Year award at eleven years old has played a significant role in guiding her life choices since then, and that she is now studying Physics at university. Van Hoorebeke also admitted that a lack of confidence with technology is a barrier to getting more young women into the field, and even despite her accomplishements, that she sometimes faces self-doubt. Elias concurred that this patter appears in professional contexts as well for which reason, she said, Deloitte works to identfy high-potential women in digital fields and starts conversations with them on leadership. “Because it is often unlikely that women will initiate these discussions themselves,” she said.

 

Formal welcome for the 2019 European Ada Awards Ceremony was provided by Ms. Loubna Azhgoud, COO of Women in Business and WomenInTech.Brussels @1819 Hub, and by Ms. Audrey Scozzaro Ferrazzi, Senior European Policy Manager at Google. Azhgoud congratulated Ada Award finalists and highlighted the event in the context of the third-annual Women Code Festival organised by the Brussels Region, which succeeded this year in reaching 2300 participants, eighty percent female, to encourage them into digital fields. Scozzaro Ferrazzi also welcomed guests with a rousing speech expressing her awe and admiration for gathered laurates who, like her, are pursuing digital fields.

Following the ceremony, WomenInTech.Brussels provided a lovely reception for the finalists and winners of the 2019 European Ada Awards and all their friends, families and supporters.

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Congratulations to the 2019 European Ada Award winners, finalists and nominees for their amazing leadership in digital fields across Europe!

Thank you to our Ada Awards sponsors and supporters!

You can find more pictures from the 2019 European Ada Awards ceremony here.
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DLI Update – May 2018

The DLI Board and Executive Team are actively involved in outreach activities with partners and stakeholders around the world that promote ESTEAM* leadership by girls and women. Find out below about our work in May 2018, learn here about future outreach activities in which we are involved, and visit our calendar for upcoming events organised by DLI.

*Entrepreneurship & Arts powered by Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

9-11 May – AWS Summit & AWS Public Sector Summit (London): May 9-11, Ms. Mai Ensmann and Ms. Katja Legisa, DLI executive team members, joined three days of public sector, startup and cloud activities as part of the AWS Summit and AWS Public Sector Summit taking place in London.

15-17 May – Navigate (Austin, TX): DLI Founding Director, Ms. Cheryl Miller,  joined the 2018 Navigate Identity Governance Conference in Austin, Texas.

21-25 May – Brussels Days (Washington, DC & New York City): 21-25 May, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founding Director, joined a Brussels Capital Region mission to Washington DC and New York City, including a Fin&Tonic event with B-Hive on “Algorithms for a Sustainable Future,” to celebrate Brussels Days.

28 & 30 May – W20 “Digital Inclusion” Meetings (Paris): In Paris on 28 and 30 May, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founding Director,  joined the “Digital Inclusion” working group meetings as a Delegate for W20 Argentina 2018.

29-30 May – OECD Forum (Paris): 29-30 May, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founding Director,  joined the OECD Forum in Paris whose subject this year is “what brings us together,” with a focus on Inclusion, Digitalisation and International Cooperation.

Be sure to visit our Calendar and Outreach Activities page, and sign up for the DLI Newsletter in order to keep up with DLI events and activities!

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DLI Update – April 2018

The DLI Board and Executive Team are actively involved in outreach activities with partners and stakeholders around the world that promote ESTEAM* leadership by girls and women. Find out below about our work in April 2018, learn here about future outreach activities in which we are involved, and visit our calendar for upcoming events organised by DLI.

*Entrepreneurship & Arts powered by Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

5 April – BSIS International Conference (Brussels): As part of the University of Kent’s Brussels School for International Studies 2018 International Conference on 5 April, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founding Director,  joined a fireside chat with Ms. Sarah Wagner, Digital Trade Manager at DIGITALEUROPE, on the subject of “Digital Disruptions: How Technology Changes Our Reality.

11 April – All On Board – Closing the Digital Gap for Girls & Women in the Developing World (Brussels): On 11 April, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founding Director,  contributed to panel on “private sector initiatives for accelerating gender equality,” as part of a UN Women, European Commission and European Parliament event entitled “All On Board – Closing the Digital Gap for Girls & Women in the Developing World,” that took place at the Berlaymont in Brussels.

19 April – AWS Public Sector Summit Brussels 2018 (Brussels): Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founding Director,  joined a high-level panel on the subject of “[We] Power Tech: Engaging and Retaining Technology Talent” at the 2018 AWS Public Sector Summit on 19 April in Brussels.

20 April – Student Forum (Brussels): In Brussels on 20 April, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founding Director,  joined the Student Forum Maastricht to provide expert input on the topic “Boosting Digital Skills in the EU – Training the Workforce of the Future” to the hundreds of European university students who took part in the forum.

27 April – World IP Day at US Mission to the EU (Brussels): On 27 April, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founding Director, joined an event at the EU Mission to the EU in Brussels, to promote the “brilliance, ingenuity, curiosity and courage of the women who are driving change in our world and shaping our common future,” in celebration of World Intellectual Property Day.

Be sure to visit our Calendar and Outreach Activities page, and sign up for the DLI Newsletter in order to keep up with DLI events and activities!

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Women Power Code Project Launches

Studies on women active in Information Technology  unveil that a greater presence of women in the area would benefit the industry, women themselves and Europe’s economy. A change in policy is needed, particularly due to an alarming drop in female ICT graduates and the limited presence of women in the STEM area (science, technology, engineering and math) reflecting thus the gender gap acknowledged in the ICT sector.

The Women Power Code project aims to educate adult women over forty years of age to understand and learn coding in order to improve their everyday life through the use of the Internet of Things. It is never too late to acquire knowledge, skills and competences in any branch of education.

Women Power Code is a three year project targeting adult women who want new challenges and seek to acquire digital skills, literacy and numeracy. The project partners are:

  • CIVIC – UK, project leader;
  • EUROCREA MERCHANT – Italy;
  • BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT FRIESLAND – Netherlands;
  • DIGITAL LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE – Belgium;
  • DANIEL SG LTD – Bulgaria;
  • BIOANIM – Slovenia;
  • North-East ADR (via Regional Center for North-East Studies).

The project will equip beneficiaries with new digital competences and will pave the way for a smooth start in understanding how to improve their everyday life by incorporating these skills. In this way, the project aims to allow women with low digital literacy to adapt and better meet the challenges posed by the use of new technologies at work, and to also help balance gender inequality in this area.

For more information and updates please visit the project website.

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DLI Update – January-February 2018

The DLI Board and Executive Team are actively involved in initiatives with partners and stakeholders around the world that promote ESTEAM* leadership by girls and women. Find out below about our work in January and February 2018, learn here about future activities in which we are involved, and visit our calendar for upcoming events organised by DLI.

*entrepreneurship, science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics

18 January – Enabel “DigiTalk” – Women in Digital for Development: Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  provided a keynote presentation on the subject of “Women and Digital for development: A new paradigm for the SDGs,” at Enabel, the Belgian Agency for Development, in Brussels.

31 January – Women Entrepreneurship Platform AGM (Brussels): On 31 January in Brussels, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  joined the Annual General Meeting of the Women Entrepreneurship Platform where she was sworn in as a member of the Board.

31 January – WEgate Information Session (Brussels): On 31 January at the European Parliament in Brussels, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  contributed to a working session on the WEgate female entrepreneurship platform of the European Commission.

2 February – Digital Skills and Jobs Governing Board Meeting (Brussels): On 2 February at the European Commission in Brussels, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  joined the third meeting of the Governing Board of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition of Europe.

20 February – Masters of Digital (Brussels): On 20 February, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  joined the DIGITALEUROPE “Masters of Digital” event taking place in Brussels.

20 February – Women in Tech Round Table with Commissioner Jourova (Brussels): On 20 February, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  joined a roundtable with European Commissioner for Justice, Ms. Vera Jourova, on the subject of “Breaking the Glass Ceiling.” The event was hosted by BSA in Brussels.

22 February – Salesforce Equality Appreciation Dinner (Brussels): Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  joined a 22 February “Equality Appreciation” dinner, hosted by Salesforce.com in Brussels.

24 February – ToekomstATELIERdelAvenir (Brussels): On 24 February, Ms. Loredana Bucseneanu, DLI Strategy Officer,  contributed to a ToekomstATELIERdelAvenir workshop on ICT with kids from the Brussels area.

26 February to 1 March – Mobile World Congress and Women4Tech 2018 (Barcelona): 26-28 February, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  joined the 2018 Ministerial Programme at Mobile World Congress 2018. On 1 March, Ms. Mai Ensman, DLI Development Manager, and Ms. Loredana Bucseneanu, DLI Strategy Officer,  joined Ms. Miller for Women4Tech 2018, at which DLI was recognized as finalist and Ms. Miller received a 2018 Global Mobile Award for her work increasing participation of girls and women in technology studies and careers.

Be sure to visit our Calendar, Upcoming Activities page, and sign up for the DLI Newsletter in order to keep up with DLI events and activities!

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DLI Update – June-August 2017

The DLI Board and Executive Team are actively involved in initiatives with partners and stakeholders around the world that promote ESTEAM* leadership by girls and women.  As part of our activities in Summer 2017, DLI Founder, Ms. Cheryl Miller, contributed to the Entrepreneurship Summer School in Brussels, whose outcomes are shared in the video below. 

Find out below about our other work in Summer 2017, learn here about future activities in which we are involved, and visit our calendar for upcoming events organised by DLI.

*entrepreneurship, science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics

1 June – Digital Festival (Brussels): DLI partnered for the second edition of the Digital Festival, that took place on 1 June in Brussels which aims to celebrate technology, ideas and global innovation. Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, contributed to an invitation-only luncheon panel on the topic of “Redesigning Work to Unlock Human Potential.”

8-9 June – Gender Equality in STEM Conference (Berlin): On 9 June, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, moderated a day-long session exploring Gender Equality in STEM as part of a first-time event on this subject that took place 8-9 June in Berlin.

11 June – In Conversation with Gloria Steinem at Google (Brussels): In collaboration with the European Women’s Lobby, Google Belgium welcomed Ms. Gloria Steinem in Brussels for an invite-only luncheon attended by Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder. The event was followed by a panel at Brussels Town Hall and a march to end violence against girls and women.

14 June – SciChallenge Contest: On 14 June, DLI Founder, Ms. Cheryl Miller, joined the jury of the 2017 SciChallenge contest, in which 487 teams from across Europe participated. The twelve top projects were awarded on 20-21 July in Vienna.

14-15 June – 2017 Digital Assembly (Valletta, Malta): 14-15 June in Valletta, Malta, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, joined hundreds of European and global stakeholders promoting “Digital Europe: Investing in the Future,” as part of the Maltese presidency of the Council of the European Union.

21 June – KAGIDER “Women in the Workforce” Session at European Parliament: On 21 June at the European Parliament in Brussels, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, joined a high-level roundtable hosted by MEP Kati Piri and KAGIDER on the the topic of participation of women in the workforce in Turkey and Europe.

29 June – “Women in Tech” Platform Launch (Brussels): On 20 June, DLI joined in celebrating the launch of the Brussels “Women in Tech” platform whose aim is to promote greater participation of girls and women in digital studies and careers in Brussels. The initiative, to which DLI is a partner, is part of the Women In Business platform supported by Impulse Brussels

10-11 July – Chatham House International Policy Forum (London): 10-11 July, DLI Founder, Ms. Cheryl Miller, joined an invitation-only International Policy Forum on the topic of “Smart and Fair: Recognizing Women’s Role in Our Economic Future,” organised by the Chatham House in London.

10-16 July – Entrepreneurship School Brussels: 10-14 July, DLI Founder, Ms. Cheryl Miller, gave a talk to dozens of aspiring entrepreneurs gathered in Brussels to take part in the Think Young Entrepreneurship School 2017. Ms. Miller provided advice and mentorship based on her experience as an entrepreneur and contributed to judging the final presentations at Google in Brussels on 14 July. Top projects by women-led teams were awarded incubation with inQube, DLI’s female tech incubator.

28-30 August – UNESCO International Symposium and Policy Forum (Bangkok): 28-30 August in Bangkok, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, spoke on the topic of “Best practices to increase participation of girls and women in ESTEAM,” as part of the UNESCO International Symposium and Policy Forum on Cracking the Code: Education for Girls in STEM.

Be sure to visit our Calendar, Upcoming Activities page, and sign up for the DLI Newsletter in order to keep up with DLI events and activities!

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Girl Coding Power at Salesforce Essentials

On 1 June in Louvain-La-Neuve, girls and women from across Belgium joined an all-female Android coding workshop organized by the Digital Leadership Institute in the context of Salesforce Essentials, a large-scale event reaching over 600 Salesforce enthusiasts. The workshop, carried out as part of our Digital Muse initiative in collaboration with Salesforce Belux and Salesforce.org, attracted participants ranging in age from ten to fifty-five, who benefited from hands-on coding lessons using MIT App Inventor and inspiring talks by Salesforce employees.

Ms. Cécile Kempeneers is a role model with plenty of role models!

Ms. Cécile Kempeneers, a Salesforce Belux Senior Account Executive who also co-organized a workshop at the most recent Girl Tech Fest Brussels 2017, shared with participants about her own role models and people who inspired her to enter a career in tech — including her grandfather, but also Elon Musk, Michelle Obama, Emma Watson and Malala Yousafzai.  Ms. Carmina Coenen, Salesforce Manager for Solution Engineering, also captured everyone’s imagination with a promise that coding and working with Salesforce would give them more options for an exciting and rewarding career.

Ms. Carmina Coenen inspires the Digital Muses

Workshop attendees showed a clear talent for developing their own Android smartphone application that translates speech from one language into spoken output in another language.  The talks by Ms. Coenen and Ms. Kempeneer also piqued their interest in career opportunities with Salesforce.

“We are excited to build on this interest by offering our community more curriculum on smartphone app-development and on becoming certified Salesforce CRM experts,” commented Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder.  “We look forward to pursuing this collaboration going forward, for the benefit of both Salesforce and for these amazing girls of all ages!”

DigitalMuse.org & Salesforce Selfie

 

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Support Our Women and Coding Survey

In early 2017, the Digital Leadership Institute joined a group of organisations from across Europe in the WOW Code2Confidence project, funded by the Erasmus+ program of the European Commission, which aims to empower women by teaching them to code. In the two-year project, a team of five partners from the UK, Romania, Croatia, Lithuania and Belgium, will research the following questions:

  • How can coding inspire women to develop themselves, encourage them to take active part in the digital society, and allow them to access new jobs created by the digital transformation?
  • What are the skills and competences women can build from basic coding education?
  • How can outcomes around coding for women be improved upon?
  • How can digital skills be used by women for social and economic empowerment?

In the first stage of the project, DLI and its partners are conducting a survey that will form the basis for recommendations and future action around the scope of the WOW Code2Confidence project.

To contribute to our research on women and coding, please participate in the survey here!

Read the first WOW Code2confidence Newsletter here, and for more information about the project, or about other DLI work promoting women in coding, please contact us!

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DLI Spring 2017 Events

February is the kickoff to a busy season of Digital Leadership Institute activities that we hope you will join us for! We are always looking for volunteers, sponsors and partners to support our work promoting ESTEAM skills to girls and women, so have a look below to find out how you can get involved!

A list of upcoming DLI events may be found on our calendar too. Get in touch if you have any questions, or register at the links provided if you would like to participate.

Girl Tech Fest Volunteer Meeting

On Saturday 29 April 2017, DLI will organise the second annual Digital Muse “Girl Tech Fest” in Brussels targeting 250 girls ages 11-14, with a full day of hands-on ESTEAM* workshops that will be all GIRLS, all TECH and all FUN!

To accomplish this undertaking, we will need the support of our awesome network of schools, partners, sponsors and — most important of all — individual volunteers who can help run hands-on workshops, organize a “Digital Muse Lab” and carry out the various activities, large and small, that will make this an incredible day for all the girls who participate.

Cypro Info Session: A Career in Cybersecurity for Women

Are you a woman seeking to transition to a career that is more lucrative and challenging, and that provides greater independence, flexibility and opportunity for advancement? Would you like to investigate a career in technology but don’t know what skills you need or how to get started?

If your answer to any of these questions is “yes,” please join us for an evening of discussion (EN/NL/FR) and exploration with Ms. Rosanna Kurrer, Cofounder of the Digital Leadership Institute, and find out more about DLI’s new CYPRO program, a cyber professional training and workforce placement program for women.

Girl Tech Fest Brussels 2017

  • Date/Time: 29 April 2017, all day 
  • Venue: European School VI
  • Registration to Open Soon

DLI is organising the second annual Digital Muse “Girl Tech Fest” for 500 girls at European School VI to stimulate interest toward girls in ESTEAM*. The girls will engage with the intersection of digital and creative as researchers through inspiring keynotes, three small (12 girls max) workshops and a trip to the Digital Muse Lab. NL/EN/FR will be represented and accommodations can be made for other languages upon request.

*Enterprise, Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics

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Towards Inclusive Digital Transformation in Europe

The future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed. – William Gibson

The world is becoming digitised at an unprecedented rate. The advent of the internet, mobile devices and cloud-working has put vast connectivity and computing power in the hands of individuals at the most personal level, the world over. Since 2000, subscriptions for mobile services in the world have grown ten-fold to seven billion, and today, 3.5 billion people are online, most of whom are located in developed countries (ITU). By 2020, it it is estimated that people will be joined on the Internet by more than 50 billion objects, only one percent of which are connected today (Cisco). The future scope of digitisation is staggering, and the speed of its onset, and apparent inevitability, has given rise to what is called “digital disruption.” The consequences of this digital disruption—for our lives, the planet and our fellow creatures—are still largely unknown.

Digital disruption is impacting the technology sector itself, where demand for skills and the computing power to fuel the transformation is far outstripping our collective ability to keep up. Digitisation is affecting non-tech industries too, where market leaders in sectors like financial services, energy and even government are reinventing themselves as “digital” organisations. The rate of digital transformation represented by consumer-focused cloud computing, whose generated revenue is predicted to quadruple over the next ten years to $173B, will be further dwarfed by the coming of age of the “Industrial Internet.” Digital transformation of the world’s power and production facilities, connected across a digital landscape populated by massive amounts of data, is heralding the fourth Industrial Revolution, and is predicted to add €422B in value to German industry alone by 2025 (BITKOM, Fraunhofer).

While we are starting to get our heads around what digital disruption is and what it means, it is also important to understand what it is not. Not all continents—let alone countries—enjoy large bandwidth and high availability online access today, and fifty-three percent of people in the world are not online. This situation belies a harsh reality underpinning the digital disruption: Not everyone is on board.

The Digital Divide

As digital transformation goes, Europe enjoys an unrivalled position in the world. Twenty-five EU countries score higher than the OECD average for ICT indicators, and nine out of the ten nations with the fastest broadband in the world are located in Europe. As ITU figures suggest, however, differences in broadband speed persist, and a “digital divide” among regions of the world which parallels socio-economic realities, is clearly observable. In 2016, more than half of the world’s population — 3.9 billion people — remain offline, and of the nearly one billion people living in the Least Developing Countries (LDCs), 851 million do not use the Internet.

Among regions of the world, a second, persistent phenomenon may also be observed that cuts across geographic locations and even socio-economic conditions. Around the globe, no matter where they are, women as a demographic are less likely to be online than men, and despite its apparent leadership, Europe’s women are also getting left behind. Of the three and a half billion people online in the world, eighteen percent are men and sixteen percent are women, reflecting 200 million fewer women online overall. In Europe, of the twenty-one countries for which the ITU collected sex-disaggregated data in 2015, men enjoy greater online access than women in eighteen countries. In addition, the rate that women come online is slower than men, which means that the digital divide thus compounded by the gender gap risks deepening.

Towards Inclusive Digital Leadership

In addition to generally enjoying less online access, European women have fewer digital skills than men, they are less likely to engage in formal Computer Science studies, and they hold twenty percent or less of technical and leadership roles in ICT organisations. Tech entrepreneurs are five times more likely to be men than women, and in some places this ratio closer to 100:1. In leadership across the board, including in the technology sector, women make up only four percent of corporate CEOs and they hold less than fifteen percent of board roles in the private sector. Since the tech sector is both a key driver of digitisation as well as a reflection of the general digitisation of a society, diversity in this sector is particularly indicative of digital inclusiveness.

Where digital skills are concerned, for the seven-year period from 2005 to 2012 during which sex-disaggregated Digital Scorecard data was collected by the European Commission, research showed a consistent and persistent lag in the digital skill-levels of European women. When overall skill-levels increased or decreased across EU member states, a corresponding shift in women’s skill sets was also reported. In every case a lag remained, roughly representing a ten percent difference between the genders. These percentages represent the following absolute numbers:

2012 – EU Population: 502M people

  • Men: 49% or 246M people in Europe
  • Men with medium-high computer skills: 57% or 140M people
  • Men with low or no computer skills: 43% or 106M people
  • Women: 51% or 256M people in Europe
  • Women with medium-high computer skills: 46% or 118M people
  • Women with low or no computer skills: 54% or 138M people

For a European population of 560 million people in 2015, Eurostat data for individuals with basic, no or low digital skills, shows the following evolution:

2015 – EU Population: 560M people

  • Men: 49% or 274M people
  • Men with basic, low or no digital skills: 50% or 137M people
  • Women: 51% or 286M people
  • Women with basic, low or no digital skills: 52% or 149M people

From this data, the following may be concluded:

  • 286 million people, or over half of Europe’s population, have basic, low or no digital skills;
  • 149 million people of Europe’s digitally under-skilled, or 27% of the total EU population, are women;
  • 12 million more women than men in Europe, or 2% of the total EU population, are digitally under-skilled; and
  • These numbers reflect a significant and persistent trend.

Although devolution in European digital skills over the 2005-2015 period may be explained by expansion of the European Union and changes to data collection approaches, the following facts are clear:

A woman in Europe is:

  • Less likely to be online;
  • More likely to be digitally under-skilled; and
  • At greater risk of being excluded from the digital disruption underway.

Towards Inclusive Digital Transformation

Like online access, digital skill levels are an excellent indicator of the general education and economic integration of a given demographic, and they are an even stronger litmus test of how well that demographic is engaged in the digital transformation afoot. As such, the situation described above represents vast lost potential to Europe and to the young and adult women of Europe who are unable to fully realise their place as productive members of our increasingly digital society. A risk exists that the needs of these women go unheeded and the benefits of engaging them in the further digitisation of European society go unrealised.

A 2013 European Commission report demonstrated that equal participation of women in the ICT sector — as a quick-win to address the growing skills and job gap in Europe — would contribute as much as €9B to the European economy every year. A UN study in the same period linked every ten percent increase in access to broadband with a 1.38% growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for developing countries, and noted that bringing 600 million additional women and girls online specifically could boost global GDP by up to $18B. The increasing rate of digital disruption could certainly serve to further compound the upside potential shown here as much as it could multiply the downside risk from exclusion that is already happening.

For this reason, the present Manifesto explicitly supports priority-setting, resources and action at the EU level that accomplishes the following:

  • Curtail the risk of further digital exclusion of Europe’s 286 million women;
  • Close the digital skills gap impacting women in Europe; and
  • Maximise the opportunities presented by engaging Europe’s women to actively design, build and lead Europe’s digital transformation.

To this end, the Manifesto seeks to promote, scale and replicate initiatives that increase ESTEAM—including digital—skills for girls and women and prepare them to lead Europe’s digital transformation. Such initiatives embody best practices of the following kind:

  • Focus on girls and women specifically;
  • Promote female role models in tech, and more generally;
  • Stimulate learning through hands-on, result-driven and values-oriented activities;
  • Develop a rich, diverse and widespread community of European female digital leaders in the public and private sector, including entrepreneurship.

Many world-class initiatives of the foregoing kind have been developed and carried out in Europe by the Digital Leadership Institute and its partners.

*Reprinted from The e-Skills Manifesto, Chapter 10: Towards Inclusive Digital Transformation, written by Cheryl Miller, Cofounder, Digital Leadership Institute – Check against printed copy.