EU women combine talent with technology to form a powerful force
[Valencia, Spain] 13 September 2023 – The statistics on women in tech can be discouraging. Women make up barely one-quarter of the overall tech workforce. One survey suggested that more than half feel burned out at work. In Europe, two-thirds of women in tech feel that they are being underpaid compared to their male colleagues.
But Huawei is trying to change things. At the fourth session of the Schools for Female Leadership in the Digital Age, a Huawei program for young female leaders, 29 students from 29 European countries convened in Valencia, Spain to discuss ways of helping female leaders thrive and grow.
This year’s session included women with backgrounds ranging from engineering and biotechnology to humanities and the social sciences. Selected by an independent jury, each received a full Huawei scholarship to attend the School.
Expert mentors and teachers were asked to give their advice to young women considering a future career in the tech world.
Their insights were captured in the latest Transform Talks, an occasional series of video interviews on technology that is part of Huawei’s Transform thought leadership platform.
Interviewees spoke about the challenges of being female in the male-dominated technology space. But they also talked about the great opportunities the tech field offers.
“Would you like to be free?” asked Eduvigis Ortiz, Founder and President of Women4Cyber in Spain. “Would you like to work in a world with no boundaries and with no limits, where you can go anywhere and work from anywhere? That's what you can do when you work in cyber security and in the technology field.”
In a second video, Transform Talks also spoke with two experts on artificial intelligence: Prof. Aleksandra Przegalinska of Kozminski University in Warsaw, Poland, who is also a Senior Research Associate at Harvard University; and Prof. Cecilia Danesi, Researcher in AI and Civil Law at the University of Buenos Aires and the University of Salamanca, and author of the book, The Empire of Algorithms: Ethics and Inclusive AI at the Service of Humanity.
“Most people are not aware that we are living in an empire of algorithms,” said Professor Danesi. “For example, all of the things that happen in social media or digital platforms are governed or decided by algorithms. Most of the time, most of the decisions that we make are manipulated, are influenced, by AI.”
The program kicked off with an Inaugural Ceremony at Valencia's City of Arts and Sciences attended by high-profile female leaders including business executives, tech experts, researchers, Members of the European Parliament, former EU Commissioners, and news media.
One attendee, the European Parliament's youngest member, Josianne Cutajar, noted that "the European Leadership Academy hosts a session on how artificial intelligence could help persons with disabilities.”
“We need inclusivity,” she said. “It's useless having technological advancement if we don't keep it human-centric."
Full details of the Schools for Female Leadership in the Digital Age, including previous editions in Lisbon, Nice and Prague can be viewed here: https://www.europeanleadershipacademy.eu/
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Note:
Published every two months, Transform is an online and print magazine that runs video interviews, newsmaker profiles, and feature articles that examine the relationship between technology, business, and society. A PDF of the magazine can be downloaded from the web site, and a hard-copy edition is available in some geographic locations and upon request.
Each edition is about one topic. Recent examples include cyber security, healthcare, and sustainability.
For more information about Transform, please contact Transform Editor Winter Wright (winter.wright@huawei.com), or Editor-in-Chief Gavin Allen (gavin.allen@huawei.com).
About Huawei
Founded in 1987, Huawei is a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. We have 207,000 employees and operate in more than 170 countries and regions, serving more than three billion people around the world.
Our vision and mission are to bring digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world. To this end, we will work towards ubiquitous connectivity and inclusive network access, laying the foundation for an intelligent world; provide diversified computing power where you need it, when you need it, to bring cloud and intelligence to all four corners of the earth; build digital platforms to help all industries and organizations become more agile, efficient, and dynamic; and redefine user experience with AI, making it smarter and more personalized for people in all aspects of their life, whether they're at home, on the go, in the office, having fun, or working out. For more information, please visit Huawei online at www.huawei.com or follow us at the sites below:
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