Women Leadership in the Digital Era

Introduction

The analysis presented with this white paper is based on a methodology integrating the latest statistics from international organizations and scientific research around the globe and surveys of executives. The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this work stress the urgent, long-overdue action. The provided diverse, inclusive approaches are in-line with gender equality strategies set up by international commissions, and high level social, economic and political institutions. In addition, the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) “Outcomes from Geneva and Tunis” and global partnership of governments and organizations dedicated to promoting gender balance in the technology sector, such as EQUALS - a coalition with UNESCO and supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) - raise awareness. The World Economic Forum (WEF, 2020), UNESCO (EQUALS and UNESCO, 2019), United Nations (UN, 2020), European Union’s Gender Equality strategy 2020-2025 and White Paper (European Commission, 2020), Construction Industry and Real Estate (Deloitte, 2021; Fortune, 2020, US Bureau of Labour Statistics 2020), International Labor Organization (2020) and consultancies e.g. Deloitte (Deloitte, 2019) - to name a few - set strong signals with their statistics and results of research.

To accelerate this dialogue, covering the many rich facets, the paper examines aspects such as: Does the male-dominated AI competence make an impact in thinking patterns in AI, so-called gender bias? What data do programmers feed learning systems with and are prejudices reproduced in algorithms without being noticed? Do we need more female developers?

One of the core tasks in the digital era for decision-makers in social, political, educational and corporate environments is to identify the benefits of AI and how to operationalize it in a responsible, morally reasonable way (Weber-Lewerenz, B., 2021a). Such process itself is strongly ethical as it requires holistic, interdisciplinary business and professional conduct ethics. Recognizing such a demanding process requires the balanced mix of gender so as to fully benefit from women’s potential and to avoid exclusion and bias in any sense. Each branch is unique and has its strength and weakness. The construction industry has proven to be a good example for demonstrating existing gatekeepers, barriers, partial prejudices, negative attitudes and a lack of both digital and AI education and encouragement of constructive approaches to overcoming and strengthening a sustainable digital age (Weber-Lewerenz, B., 2021b). Strengthening of inclusion and diversity not only follows ethical responsibility, but also the principle of the common good and the value chain’s expansion (Weber-Lewerenz, B. & Vasiliu-Feltes, I., 2022).