As part of International Women’s Day 2018, the Information Office of the European Parliament in Luxembourg organised a conference Friday the 9th of March at the European Union house. The subject was “Empower women to take ownership of the digital world.”
During the introduction, Viviane Reding underlined the differences between men and women in Luxembourg and in Europe as well as the place of women in the society. She also pointed out the low percentage of women in technological studies and technological jobs. She mentioned the important need for digital skills and digital education arguing that “each occupation will be influenced by digital and 90% of future jobs will require digital skills.”
Then, she gave the floor to Christiane Wickler, chairwoman of the association of women entrepreneur and entrepreneur herself. Mrs Wickler explained the changes expected from digitalisation in the business world. She mentioned as well the opportunities for women in this context of digitalisation. About people’s reluctance to digitalisation, she said: “Above all, we need to learn to eradicate fear. We don’t have to be afraid it is our decision to make if the internet will become our master or our tool.”
Finally, Marie-Adélaïde Gervis, director and co-founder of WIDE addressed the audience. She explained the work and actions of WIDE developing the three pillars that we are working on: self-confidence, skills and networking. She also mentioned our actions towards the youth. Finally, she presented three of our European projects: Gender4STEM, WowCode2Confidence and eSkills4All. She highlighted the fact that WIDE’s goal is not to make each girl a developer but “to demystify notions, to break down the barriers, to be able to talk with other departments in the same company” to increase women’s desire “to learn something new.”
This conference was a successful event to keep empowering women in the field of digital.
You can watch the video of this conference here and you can also download transcripts in English and French:
