2023 SUMMIT

FRIDAY 20 OCTOBER, 2023

ABOUT

This 2023 World Summit on Women and Girls is an intergenerational dialogue with a focus on empowering women and girls to shape the digital age. The speakers and participants will highlight and discuss the need for women and girls to get on board and lead in the technology, innovation, and education sectors. Speakers and participants will discuss and share intergenerational ideas, opportunities, challenges, emerging issues, and realities on the ground for women and girls to lead and shape the digital future.

BACKGROUND

Various studies have indicated that women and girls were largely excluded from the first, second, as well as the third industrial revolutions. This led to almost two centuries of the world economy being dominated by men. With the foundations of the fourth industrial revolution being focused on a digital era, the absence of women and girls in digital leadership and decision-making would be a huge blow to closing the existing and gapping gender gap.

Technology and innovation are at the forefront of bringing in new trends in a changing world of work and in society by changing habits and behaviours to create significant wealth. Research has shown that women and girls score better than their male counterparts in most leadership skills and in key skills, including problem solving and innovation. And yet, we find that only 7.4 percent of Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs. With most businesses and education platforms migrating into the digital space, there is still a profound digital gender divide in the world of work.

According to the OECD report of 2018, the number of women leaders in the technology sector in the United Kingdom stood at just 5%. The report also showed that there were 327 million fewer women than men who owned a smartphone and had access to the mobile Internet. In the US, only 24 percent of workers in the technology sector are female. Women and girls remain constrained by the lack of financial resources and digital resources, as well as the fear of online safety. In most cases, socio-cultural thinking is another factor that discourages women from embarking on a career in the technology and innovation sector, with only three percent of females in the UK having a career in technology as their first choice. The World Bank has indicated that the absence of women leaders in the technology and innovation industry would lead to a digital world being designed for the 21st century without female leadership. Without closing the existing gender digital divide, there will be very little hope that gender equality can be achieved in 21^st Century.

RATIONALE

While technology continues to bring change in the world of work by changing habits and behaviours to create significant wealth, the onset of the digital era has also placed challenges that impact negatively on women and girls as they find themselves out-numbered by their male counterparts in leadership and decision-making. Women and girls also find themselves victims of online violence in the form of threats on their lives, cyber bullying, body shaming, human trafficking portals, and other online dangers. This is due to the fact that women and girls are missing in the leadership and decision-making space of technology, innovation, and education and therefore, cannot control the parameters to favour their participation. As we advance into the digital age, it is critical that women and girls get on board and take up leadership and decision-making roles in the technology, innovation, and education sectors. With female leadership absent in the digital space, the perspectives, experiences, needs, fears, hopes and aspirations of women are not taken into account in many areas of technological advancement and innovation. Hence we find women and girls at the negative end of the digital era in most cases.

To address the issues women and girls face in the digital space, having more women and girls in leadership in the tech sector will help the situation. As more women and girls take up space in the technology, innovation, and education sector, they will build confidence and experience to enable themselves to launch their own tech start-ups and help control the narrative, including the algorithms that subject women and girls to suffer online violence, cyber bullying, harassment, and other online dangers. Regulations need to be put in place for companies to introduce quotas for women hired in the technology, innovation, and education sector, with gender certification process being put in place for companies to give more opportunities to women and girls to work in the digital space.

Furthermore, women and girls need to be upskilled in technology and innovation, as many of the businesses and learning platforms are migrating into the digital space. E-Learning has become a great opportunity for all to leverage digital technologies to access educational curriculum. Technology accelerators and start-ups should be inclusive to give resources, investment and guidance for women and girls to scale up in the digital space. Development organisations, business corporations and the media have to promote successful women tech entrepreneurs and make them role models. The 2020 World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report indicates that it will take another 257 years to achieve economic gender parity. Therefore, closing the gender digital gap should be a global priority. Without accelerated action in the digital space, progress towards gender equality will be painfully slow.

OBJECTIVES

Hold an intergenerational dialogue to highlight and discuss the need for women and girls to get on board and lead in the technology, innovation, and education sectors in the digital era.
Discuss avenues to empower women and girls in shaping the digital future.
Explore ideas, opportunities, challenges, emerging issues, and realities on the ground for women and girls to lead and shape the digital future.
Highlight the need for women tech role models to be promoted to empower the next generation of women and girls to enter the tech sector.
Encourage development organisations, business corporations and the media to promote successful women tech entrepreneurs as female role models.
Address the online dangers suffered by women and girls in the digital space.
Embark on an awareness-drive on the issues and dangers women and girls face online.
Create a female force of leaders and decision-makers in technology, innovation, and education sectors.
Allow women and girls to shape the digital future to help achieve gender equality in the 21^st century.

OUTCOMES

The need for women and girls to get on board and lead in the technology, innovation, and education sector in the digital era highlighted.
Avenues to empower women and girls in shaping the digital future outlined.
Ideas, opportunities, challenges, emerging issues, and realities on the ground for women and girls to lead and shape the digital future outlined.
Women and girls educated on their rights and critical role in taking up leadership and decision-making in the digital space.
Development organisations, business corporations and the media encouraged to promote successful women tech entrepreneurs as female role models.
Perspectives of women and girls regarding technology, innovation and education explored
Awareness-drive on the issues and online dangers suffered by women and girls in the digital space incorporated.
Creation of a female force of leaders and decision-makers in technology, innovation, and education sectors explored.
Woman and girls included and allowed space to shape policy and decision-making in technology, innovation, and education.
Space created for women and girls to take up leadership and decision-making roles in technology, innovation, and education to help achieve gender equality in the 21^st Century.