Women in Tech. Empowering women in the digital era

In the framework of Agenda Digitale 2020-2025, together with Regione Emilia-Romagna, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini organised Women in Tech, an initiative to reflect on the gender gap in the digital era.

The conference, designed within the Donne e Digitale project of Data Valley Bene Comune, analysed the causes and imagined concrete actions that will enable greater female participation in the technological context. With the dual purpose of affirming equal digital rights and opportunities for women and availing of their contribution to building a more equitable and inclusive information society, two rounds of meetings were planned between 2021 and 2022.

The first round, included four meetings between November 2021 and February 2022, in Ferrara, Rimini, Piacenza and Cesena. The meetings were organised in collaboration with the regional network of Laboratori Aperti and attended by more than 1,000 people.

In the second edition, six events were held between June and December 2022, in Forlì, Bologna, Parma, Modena, Reggio Emilia and Faenza. During these dates, the conferences focused on inequalities in data collection and the perpetration of gender stereotypes in the creation of algorithms.

The main topic of the public debate was on strategies to put women on the digital map as creators and subjects, as well as users. The project also aimed at countering the low presence of women in STEM and digital jobs, giving women new opportunities and skills in the new labour market. Topics ranged across all fields of digital application, from tourism to video games, from the food and wine sector to the supply chain to secondary education and inclusive urban models.

Barbara Leda Kenny, editor-in-chief of inGenere and gender expert at Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini moderated the meetings.