Women have the strength and the capacity to take on key roles in the digital world, but in order to reveal their full potential, strategic actions are needed.
This is the main conclusion from the first international SHEleader@digital conference, held on April 12 in Sofia.
The event gathered more than 200 representatives from the business, non-profit and public sector from fifteen countries. They all came together around the view that women's full participation in the socio-economic process requires reconsidering the stereotypes, a fair assessment of the talents and a common action framework. A concrete step in this direction is the Women leaders@digital for Europe Coalition, initiated by the Bulgarian Center of Women in Technology (BCWT) at the event. It aims to create a platform for partnerships of incentives, stimulating the female entrepreneurship and the participation of more women in technology and digitally-based industries.
"The challenges of the transforming world we live in require new thinking and new approaches, men and women working together with their talent and ideas in finding the solutions for tomorrow. We organized SHEleader@digital to stimulate the dialogue on the leadership in the digital era, to support female entrepreneurship and to build a bridge between today's professional leaders and the new generation of innovators.", stated the founder of the Bulgarian Center of Women in Technology and MOVE.BG Sasha Bezuhanova in her welcome keynote speech.
SHEleader@digital is organized by the Bulgarian Center of Women in Technology (BCWT)
It is organized in partnership with the Ministry of the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the European Commission and was held under the official patronage of the EU Commissioner for digital economy and society Mariya Gabriel.
“There is no doubt that Europe’s future is digital and it should be inclusive. In this sense, women’s role and participation in Europe's digital transformation is crucial," Gabriel said in her speech and stressed that “no one should remain excluded from the possibilities offered by the digital technologies and a conference like this is a big step forward."
Divided into four main sessions, the SHEleader@digital conference looked at the contemporary role of women through leadership, entrepreneurship, new technologies, and work-life balance.
Outstanding leaders and entrepreneurs from all over the world arrived especially in Sofia to take part in SHEleader@digital and to share their experiences and inspire with their personal success stories.
Lina Salanauskaite from the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) presented for the first time data from a survey focussing on gender equality in the digital sector and work-life balance. Bulgaria has the largest share of female IT professionals in the European Union - 31%, but at the same time there are considerable differences in this indicator among the member states, Salanauskaite said.
EIGE’s data also reveal that women need higher qualifications than men to get jobs in the ICT. sector. According to Salanauskaite, attracting more women to the technology world is a matter not only of digital and engineering skills, but also a question of motivation. In this sense, efforts must begin at an early stage in girls' development even before teenage age.
The Chief Product and Information Officer of Financial Times Cait O'Riordan presented FT’s efforts to strengthen equal opportunities across the business and build a more inclusive talent pipeline. O'Riordan also announced the opening of a new FT office in Sofia focused on product and technology roles.
Cait O'RiordanMina Dimitrova, Head of Central Go To Market, EMEA at Google, Mary-Jo de Leeuw, founder and VP of Women in Cyber Security Foundation (WiCS) and Rumyana Trencheva, Managing Director for SAP SEE shared their personal stories on the road to success and how to balance between life and work.
The conference paid particular attention to the funding of startups created by young women.
Five business ventures with a social impact were presented - Lubomila Yordanova - Plan A, Magi Pashova - Food Revolution, Iva Gumnishka - Human in the Loop, Ina Abadjieva - Rosey's Mark, Olga Mineva - EMPROVE.
Rumen Iliev (Partner at Launchub), Marzena Bielecka (Managing Partner and Founder of Experior Venture Fund), and Vasil Terziev (Partner at 11.2 and Co-founder at Telerik Academy) discussing why it is harder for women entrepreneurs to raise moneySHEleader@digital also presented three of the finalists from the young entrepreneurs’ contest Entreprenegirl, which will become international starting September 2018.
Ralitza Bankova, Moryana Filipova and Petya Petkova, Enterpregirl finalists