Technology has become key in our life, reshaping the world we live in. The European Union has addressed this development by deciding to allocate 20% of the NextGenerationEU budget to the digital transformation of Europe’s industry and society. In this scenario diversity is a critical point, as it enables companies to look at solutions and products with a wider vision, creating value from a variety of perspectives. According to many international studies, companies that see diversity as a value perform better, hire better talent, have more engaged employees and retain workers better than companies that do not invest in diversity and inclusion. Despite the above, women remain widely underrepresented in IT roles.

As 2020’s #halfofit campaign highlighted, women are the basis for a strong society and deserve to participate equally in building the future of our communities. The recent inauguration of the United States’ first woman Vice President demonstrated that representation matters more than ever – in politics just as in the realm of digital development. Our world is evolving based on new technologies. This is why underrepresentation or outright exclusion of women from the tech world is an obstacle to social progress. Yet, due to societal norms or lack of support, there are still too little incentives for girls to follow science and math during their initial education. Today, according to a European study, only 17% of ICT specialists are women, 34% of STEM graduates are women, and women in the sector earn 19% less than men. Enabling women to access equal opportunities to pursue — and thrive in — STEM careers achieves four goals:

1. Ensures a diverse and talented STEM workforce
2. Prevents entrenched bias in technology and in the products and services it produces
3. Helps to narrow the gender pay gap
4. Enhances women’s economic security

In a non-legislative report adopted on 21 January 2021, Members of the European Parliament’s FEMM-Committee have called on the European Commission to address the serious gender gap within the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector. Among others, the report concludes that “if more women were to enter the digital jobs market, the sector would hugely benefit from an untapped talent pool of skills and variety of perspectives, which could create an annual EUR 16 billion GDP boost for the European economy”.

The European Union has been tackling the gender divide in recent years. One example is the EIGE Gender Equality Index, which focussed on the effects of digitalisation on the working lives of women and men in its 2020 report. The index underlines that women are underrepresented in new technologies i.e. in developing artificial intelligence, digital start-ups and high technology products. Overall, men dominate the development of new technologies across the EU and the expansion of work organised through online platforms is reproducing traditional gender inequalities, such as the gender pay gap and gender segregation. Current numbers from the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report of 2018 showcase these inequalities, stating that only 22% of AI professionals globally are female, compared to 78 % who are male. In 2019, USD 92 of every USD 100 invested in European tech companies went to founding teams that were all men.

In addition to that, data has proven, time after time, that a more diverse workforce is not only more efficient and profitable, but also offers companies the chance to hear perspectives that were not previously present. It’s crucial for companies to have more intersectional voices heard across the tech industry, especially in leadership functions, and to encourage more diversity to ensure that they are creating solutions and technology for the modern world: one that is filled with people from different walks of life.

Europe must define and enforce plans and policies to fill this gap by giving women the chance to be more present in technology and to achieve the critical mass necessary to overcome tokenisation. Women make up half of the world: when we see the future evolving out of spaces where women are prevented from thriving, we have an obligation to first understand why, and to then take bold measures to close these gaps.