Category: Editorial

Posted on

W20 Series: Digital Equity for Women’s Economic Agency in the EU – Volume 2

A Successful Footprint for Increasing Digital Skills and Tech Entrepreneurship Among Women

By Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, Head of W20 EU Delegation 

(Originally published on the Sasakawa Peace Foundation website in English and Japanese)

W20 Series – Special Feature on Digital and Reskilling
The G20’s official engagement group Women 20 (W20) has identified the gender digital divide as one of its key challenges and has included it in its policy recommendations to G20 countries. While there are concerns that the accelerating pace of technological advancement in recent years will further widen the gender digital divide, initiatives to close the gender digital divide have started around the world by utilizing digital technologies and reskilling. As a spin-off of the feature articles of W20 Series which introduce works and activities of the W20 and its delegates, this series will showcase the case studies of empowering women through digital technologies and reskilling women in the G20 countries. 
 (W20 India Website: https://w20india.org/)

Following on from the previous article, “W20 Series: Digital Equity for Women’s Economic Agency in the European Union Vol. 1“, this article introduces specific initiatives being organised in the European Union to improve women’s digital skills.

The Digital Leadership Institute, a Brussels-based nonprofit I founded in 2014 with the mission of promoting inclusive digital transformation, has benefitted from such EU funding schemes in order to deliver innovative and award-winning programs that increase participation of girls and women in “ESTEAM”—or “entrepreneurship and arts powered by STEM”—and that contribute to women’s economic agency as professionals, entrepreneurs and leaders across the board. 代替テキストを入力 / Enter alternate text

We4Change aims to connect girls and women for environemntal change with digital and innovation (Source: DLI)Over the past ten years, DLI programs have positively impacted tens of thousands of girls and women across Europe and beyond, and have advanced the state of the art for practices that are successful at promoting digital entrepreneurship and leadership by women, many that DLI was first to identify. These initiatives include the Ada Awards, international awards recognising outstanding girls and women in digital research and careers and their supporting people and organisations; We4Change, a project that aims to contribute to the EU Youth Strategy by empowering young girls and women with digital and innovation skills, to have an active role in addressing the challenges posed by climate change; inQube, a global network promoting women-led, digitally-driven and digitally-enabled enterprises with the “Move It Forward” flagship female digital starter events; Digital Muse, a European network promoting ‘STEM-powered entrepreneurship and the arts’ for girls (Digital Muse); Digital Brusselles, Europe’s first female tech incubator; and Cypro, a cyber professional training and career placement program for women.  Of those noted, Move It Forward and Cypro especially embody best practices to attract girls and women to digital fields.代替テキストを入力 / Enter alternate text

Move It Forward (MIF) supports female entrepreneurs (Source: DLI)Move It Forward (“MIF”) is the flagship event of DLI’s inQube platform promoting women tech starters. It is a two-day project-driven entrepreneurship event for teen and adult women of all skill levels with the aim of supporting them to become technology entrepreneurs. MIF provides beneficiaries the mission, tools, community, resources and know-how to deliver tech and tech-enabled solutions for challenges that disproportionately impact girls and women and their communities.  Each MIF event includes digital skills trainings, project work and pitching, networking with community members and partners, and recognition and awards that take the form of mentorship and long-term support for projects launched.

In 2020, Move It Forward was the subject of a European Commission-funded program that also delivered an open-source “MIF+ Toolkit” in order to permit other organisations around the world to benefit from the approach, materials and best-practices assembled over a decade of successfully deploying the MIF initiative. By 2023, Move It Forward had been delivered in twenty-five countries, reaching over twelve-hundred participants and launching more than two hundred women-led tech startups, about fifty of which are ongoing.代替テキストを入力 / Enter alternate text

Cypro Nurtures Professional Women in IT　(Source: DLI)In addition, in 2017, DLI piloted the Cypro (“Cyber Professional”) training and career placement program whose mission is to educate and matriculate women with five or more years of non-technical work experience into expert roles within IT organisations. After completing a preliminary training period, Cypro beneficiaries join a company as paid IT associates through an on-the-job training/apprenticeship program that lasts up to three years. During this time, participants also spend a percentage of their workweek pursuing IT certification programs through DLI and its partners, AWS, Cisco, Oracle et al., in emerging technology fields that align with their job role, including software development, cybersecurity, cloud computing, IoT, big data, machine learning, AI, etc.  Over the course of the Cypro program, DLI also delivers mentorship and community activities for beneficiaries, as well as staffing, evaluation, advancement and DEI support toward client IT organisations. 

In its first year, ninety women of diverse backgrounds took part in the Brussels Cypro pilot and completed a Cisco IT Fundamentals bootcamp and AWS Associate trainings. Half were awarded IT certifications, twenty-five percent became Trainer certified, and to date, five percent have become full-time employed with IT organisations. During Covid, Cypro was put on hold and is now being relaunched in collaboration with Amazon Web Services as an official part of their European re/Start program.

Initiatives like Move It Forward and Cypro are successful because they embody best practices to attract and retain girls and women in technology fields. Like all DLI programs, MIF and Cypro explicitly target girls and women as beneficiaries, addressing an underlying negative attitude girls and women sometimes harbour toward STEM, especially Technology, and entrepreneurship.  These programs also deliver gender-responsive digital skills trainings, meaning that program design and delivery address factors that specifically ensure success for girl and women program participants. In addition, Cypro delivers skills in deep and emerging tech fields, while MIF teaches key digital skills that are usable in startup and workplace environments.

Move It Forward Team-building (Source: DLI)

Gathering at Digital Muse Event (Source: DLI)

For long-term sustainability, we focus on building community around all DLI activities, which is perhaps the single-most important factor in achieving a more inclusive digital transformation over the long-term. MIF and Cypro also focus on providing access to mentorship and resources, including financing and startup advice, which connects program participants to a larger ecosystem.  Finally, a major barrier to women making the transition into tech fields is that they cannot necessarily undertake effort that either involves a financial outlay and/or represents unpaid work—thus reflecting in their lower participation in tech bootcamps, startup weekends, skills trainings, etc.  DLI programs therefore offer scholarships to participants, prioritise remunerated training and apprenticeship opportunities, and support job placement and/or business launch and scaling in order to shorten the path toward financial independence for program participants. This also represents a critical success factor in getting women into and keeping them in technology fields.

Unfortunately, work like the foregoing is difficult and successes far too few. Despite an increase in European programs that support work that tackles underrepresentation of girls and women in STEM at ecosystem, capacity-building and grass roots levels, negative trends have not reversed over the past decade. DLI’s own successes especially have been limited, most notably by a lack of sustained funding to support continued effort on our critical path, and by an inability for us to scale successes across broader geographies. In the case of Cypro, the very barriers to entry that keep women out of the tech sector are also those that DLI has encountered in sustaining the program and followup action to ensure participant success.

Replicating and scaling innovative initiatives, like those that DLI leads, is not an unusual challenge in Europe, a geography of 550 million people speaking dozens of languages across almost thirty sovereign countries.  At the same time, a persistent lack of funding for programs promoting gender equity, including in STEM, is a symptom of institutionalised discrimination across all fields that also manifests as a lack of policy priority-setting on such issues. Public sector leadership in this context is critical, however, because it also stimulates private sector uptake of approaches to promote gender parity, and thereby engenders a virtuous circle of action tackling problems like the gender digital divide.代替テキストを入力 / Enter alternate text

Gender digital divide addressed at W20 summit (Source: W20 India)

In her 2023 State of the European Union speech, European Commission President Von der Leyen highlighted EU policies that support greater participation of girls and women in STEM sectors, especially tech, which include broad-sweeping digital skilling, some that targeted underserved demographics, as well as programs promoting women entrepreneurs.
 

These actions, along with global leadership like the W20’a ongoing work to close the Digital Gender Divide and recent W20 India breakthrough to institutionalise a Women’s Empowerment Working Group at the G20 level, give us room to be optimistic about what the future will bring on this critical subject.

Author’s Profile

Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck is Director of the Brussels-based Digital Leadership Institute, Head of EU Delegation to the G20 Women20, and Chair of the Education, Skills Development and Labour Force Participation Task Force, 2023 G20 India Women20.

Posted on

W20 Series: Digital Equity for Women’s Economic Agency in the EU – Volume 1

Lessons from the EU on Closing the Digital Gender Divide

By Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, Head of W20 EU Delegation 

(Originally published on the Sasakawa Peace Foundation website in English and Japanese)

W20 Series – Special Feature on Digital and Reskilling
The G20’s official engagement group Women 20 (W20) has identified the gender digital divide as one of its key challenges and has included it in its policy recommendations to G20 countries. While there are concerns that the accelerating pace of technological advancement in recent years will further widen the gender digital divide, initiatives to close the gender digital divide have started around the world by utilizing digital technologies and reskilling. As a spin-off of the feature articles of W20 Series which introduce works and activities of the W20 and its delegates, this series will showcase the case studies of empowering women through digital technologies and reskilling women in the G20 countries. 
 (W20 India Website: https://w20india.org/)

In this article, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, Head of W20 EU Delegation and Director of the Brussels-based Digital Leadership Institute that promotes women’s empowerment using digital technologies, will introduce EU initiatives in two parts. In Vol. 1, the importance of bridging the digital divide and the EU government policies are discussed, which is followed by Vol. 2, which will feature the specific initiatives for digital reskilling being conducted in the EU.

A Worldwide Phenomenon of the Digital Disruption

Anywhere in the world today, a woman is:
  • Less likely to be online;
  • More likely to have low or no digital skills;
  • Much less likely to be an IT professional; and
  • Far less likely to launch a technology-driven startup.

As a result of the foregoing, women are at greater risk of being excluded by the digital disruption that has transformed society—a situation exacerbated by climate change, pandemics, geopolitical disruption, and economic uncertainty. This reality poses a great risk to women’s financial independence, economic resilience more generally, and to sustainable development.

Percentage of female and male population using the Internet, 2020 (Source: ITU)

A key characteristic of the digital disruption which cuts across geographic locations and socio-economic conditions is that, no matter where she is in the world, a woman is less likely to be online than a man. Of the Earth’s 7.8 billion human population as of 2020, women make up fifty-seven percent and men sixty-two percent of people who are online, reflecting 234 million fewer women online overall. Despite a surge in online participation during the COVID pandemic, the rate at which women go online continues to lag behind.  This ubiquitous and persistent trend represents the digital divide compounded by the gender gap which, without focused effort to address it, risks deepening. This global phenomenon is recognised as the gender digital divide.

In countries where digitalisation has a firmer hold, women are still less likely to have digital skills, take up formal computer science and other STEM studies, or hold technical and leadership roles in IT organizations. Globally, the founder of a technology-driven enterprise is five times more likely to be a man than a woman, and in many places, the ratio is closer to ten-to-one. In addition to the yawing social divide this reality reflects, it also represents a loss for the global economy and for women themselves who are unable to fully realise their potential as economic agents in an increasingly digital society.代替テキストを入力 / Enter alternate text

The UN reported that bringing women and girls online could boost global GDP. (Source: ITU)

In 2013, the UN reported that bringing 600 million women and girls online could boost global GDP by up to $18B. A European study in 2018 suggests that greater participation of women in the ICT sector would contribute as much as €16B annually to the European economy alone. Especially as a response to the COVID-induced “She-cession,” action to tackle the gender digital divide presents an opportunity to improve women’s economic agency, address the digital skills and job gap, and promote sustainable development.

As a path out of economic adversity, women everywhere turn to entrepreneurship, making women-led enterprise one of the most dynamic facets of the global economy, although it is not a consistent policy priority. GEM research in 2019 indicates that $5T would be added to the world’s economy if women participated in entrepreneurship at the same rate as men. The COVID pandemic disproportionately impacted women—forcing millions out of the workplace, many permanently. In response, entrepreneurship is and will continue to be a key factor in sustaining financial independence for women and supporting economic recovery.

In the digital society, economic participation is increasingly linked to skills that support both digitally-enabled and digitally-driven entrepreneurship, where women face a de facto disadvantage in both areas. A lack of digital skills to build, launch and manage enterprises, including in online marketplaces and supply chains, creates a persistent barrier to entry for women seeking to participate as entrepreneurs in the digital economy. A lack of specialised digital skills, including as experts in academia and industry, further limits the ability of women to contribute as innovators, researchers, entrepreneurs and leaders in the digital society. The uptake of artificial intelligence, and the inherent risk it poses to intensifying social inequities, can further amplify this problem.

The Policy and Measures of the EU to Bridge the Digital Gap

On March 5, 2020, Ursula von der Leyen, the first woman President of the European Commission, launched the EU Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025 whose key objectives include closing gender gaps in the labour market and achieving equal participation between women and men across all sectors of the economy. In January 2023, the Digital Decade for Europe 2030 policy went into force which explicitly aims to close the gender gap among IT specialists as a key driver for achieving the twin digital and green transitions in Europe.

President Ursula von der Leyen launced the EU Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025. (Source: The European Union)

Increasing participation of women in digital fields is thus prioritised as a contributor to achieving the European Green Deal which, among other things, aims to make Europe a net-zero emitter of greenhouse gases by 2050.  This priority has also set off a cascading set of programming and policy actions in Europe to tackle inequalities related to skills, care and other issues that might otherwise constrain women from enjoying full economic agency and fairly contributing to the digital society.

In this context, during her recently concluded mission as EU Commissioner for Research, Mariya Gabriel instituted several ground-breaking changes to the €95.5B Horizon Europe funding scheme which aim to increase gender equality across the European Research Area (ERA), and thus in STEM fields and startup.  These include a focus on gender balance among Horizon Europe research program evaluators, advisory bodies and researchers; and targets for women-led companies and advisory structures within entrepreneurship programs, a dedicated initiative to support women-led startups, and a women innovators prize.

EU Commissioner for Research, Mariya Gabriel initiated to increase gender equality across the European Research Area. (Source: The European Union)

Leadership like the foregoing is essential to achieving digital equity and improved economic agency for women in Europe because EU multi-annual financial framework (MFF) funding schemes, like Horizon Europe, underwrite countless EU member state activities that contribute to increased participation of women in STEM and startup.  MFF and other funding programs such as ERASMUS+, which specifically supports the European entrepreneurship ecosystem, contribute critical funding for EU civil society-led digital skills and startup programs, many of which aim to increase gender equality in technology fields, including entrepreneurship.

All together, the policy, funding and program-delivery ecosystem in the European Union has become increasingly successful at programming like the foregoing which promotes digital equity for women’s economic agency, contributes to financial independence for women, and makes inroads on the sustainable development goals and other global challenges.  This approach deserves replication, all or in part, because it contributes to:

  •     Reducing the risk of marginalisation posed to women by digital disruption;

  •     Addressing the global digital skills and job gaps;

  •     Supporting a pathway to increased workforce participation and entrepreneurship by women;

  •     Harnessing the creative capacity of women for sustainable economic development; and

  •     Promoting women’s full economic, social and political agency.

In the following article, “W20 Series: Digital Equity for Women’s Economic Agency in the European Union Vol. 2” will feature the specific initiatives of digital reskilling in the EU. 

Author’s Profile

Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck is Director of the Brussels-based Digital Leadership Institute, Head of EU Delegation to the G20 Women20, and Chair of the Education, Skills Development and Labour Force Participation Task Force, 2023 G20 India Women20.

Posted on

Women Entrepreneurs and the Digital Transition

As Policy Chair and Community Councilmember for the WEgate project promoting women-led entrepreneurship in Europe, DLI Director Cheryl Miller also leads the WEgate Thematic Group on Women Entrepreneurs and the Digital Transition (“Digital Transition TG”).

Over the course of 2022, the Digital Transition TG gathered to analyse and synthesise the impact of the digital transition on women entrepreneurs in Europe. Outcomes and recommendations from this work which address Ethics in AI, Gender and Cybersecurity, Tech-readiness of Women-led Startups, and the Gender Gap in Digital Skills, are captured in a policy brief published by the WEgate project on 22 January 2023.

Congratulations for this terrific outcome to WEgate Women Entrepreneurs and the Digital Transition Thematic Group members, Leïla Maidane, Isabel Bustos and Ms. Miller, under project leadership by Emilija Andonova and Gabriela Kostovska Bogoeska.

From the WEgate website:

One of the aims of WEgate is to increase the visibility of women entrepreneurs and to promote discussion on important topics for improving the conditions for women’s entrepreneurship development. To address critical areas of interest in women’s entrepreneurship development, dedicated WEgate Thematic groups (TGs) are formed as ad-hoc groups within the WEgate Community. The third WEgate TG is dedicated to Digital transition, analysing the challenges faced by women in the digital arena.

This policy brief summarizes the findings of the WEgate thematic group on women’s entrepreneurship policy. It highlights the key challenges and recommendations for policy-making in four areas: gender mainstreaming, evidence-based policy-making, finance and funding for women entrepreneurs, and stakeholders engagement in policy development. For each policy area, recommendations are being proposed, targeting policymakers at the European and national levels.

Download the WEgate Women Entrepreneurs and the Digital Transition Policy Brief (PDF) here.

Posted on

Digital Equity for Women’s Economic Agency at STI Forum 2022

Online on 5 May 2022, 18:00-19:15CET / 12:00-1:15pm EST, the G20 Women20 European Union Delegation and Brussels-based Digital Leadership Institute are proud to organize “Digital Equity for Women’s Economic Agency,” an official side-event of the UN ECOSOC’s 7th Multi-Stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for the SDGs (STI Forum).

Confirmed Speakers:

Format: This event will feature a Roundtable, with interventions by representatives of public and private organizations promoting women’s economic empowerment and closing the gender digital divide for economic recovery and sustainable development. A Question & Answer session open to the public will follow the Roundtable.

Moderator: The event will be moderated by Cheryl Miller, Co-head of the G20 Women20 European Union Delegation, and Director of the Digital Leadership Institute

Registration: This online event is open to the public and registration is required. The event will be organized on Zoom and accessed via the STI Forum Whova platform which is still in process. Those who register via Zoom will also have access. Please stay tuned.

Live Stream: The event will also be streamed live on the DLI YouTube channel.

Concept Note:

Anywhere in the world today, a woman is: 

  • Less likely to be online;
  • More likely to have low or no digital skills;
  • Less likely to be an IT professional; and 
  • Far less likely to launch a tech-driven enterprise.

As a result, women are at greater risk of being excluded by the digital disruption, a phenomenon exacerbated by the COVID pandemic.

COVID has disproportionately impacted women—forcing millions out of the workplace, many permanently. In response, entrepreneurship is and will continue to be a key factor in sustaining financial independence for women and in reigniting the global economy.  In the digital society, such participation is increasingly linked to skills supporting both digitally-enabled and digitally-driven entrepreneurship.

However, a key characteristic of the digital disruption which cuts across geographic locations and socio-economic conditions is that, no matter where they are in the world, women are less likely to be online than men. Of the Earth’s 7.8 billion human population, men make up thirty percent and women twenty-five percent of people who are online, reflecting 195 million fewer women online overall. Despite a surge in online participation during the COVID pandemic, the rate at which women go online continues to lag behind. This ubiquitous and persistent trend represents the digital divide compounded by the gender gap which, without focused effort to address it, risks widening.

In countries where digitalization has a firmer hold, women are still less likely to have digital skills, take up formal computer science or other STEM studies, or hold technical and leadership roles in IT organizations. Globally, the founder of a digitally-driven enterprise is five times more likely to be a man than a woman, and in many places the ratio is closer to ten-to-one.

In addition to the yawing social divide this reality reflects, italso represents a loss for the global economy and for women themselves who are unable to fully realize their potential as economics actors in an increasingly digital society. In 2013, the UN reported that bringing 600 million women and girls online could boost global GDP by up to $18B. A European study of the same period suggests that equal participation of women in the ICT sector would contribute as much as €9B annually to the European economy. Especially as a response to the COVID-induced “She-cession,” action to tackle the gender digital divide presents an opportunity to improve women’s economic agency, address the digital skills and job gap, and promote a pathway toward sustainable development.

Regardless of geography, closing the gender digital divide presents a critical factor in ensuring women’s economic agency, previously and again at present, in order to promote economic development. This focus has the advantages of limiting the risk of further marginalization of women as a result of the digital disruption, addressing the global IT skills gap, filling tech jobs that otherwise go unfilled, and of supporting a woman’s pathway to economic agency in the workforce and as an entrepreneur whose work is digitally-enabled and/or tech-driven.

As such, the greatest single driver of economic recovery exiting the COVID pandemic, and that which will most contribute to sustainable development going forward, will be action supporting digital equity for women’s economic agency at the intersection of promoting women’s economic empowerment (WEE)—with women as entrepreneurs,  equal actors in the workforce, and leaders across the board—and closing the gender digital divide (GDD).

Questions: The event will investigate the following questions: 

  • What is the economic impact of the gender digital divide and the opportunity presented by closing it?
  • What is the state-of-play regarding development action that focuses on tackling the gender digital divide and promoting women’s economic empowerment? 
  • What indicators and best practices may be employed to support digital equity for women’s economic agency as a pathway to economic recovery and sustainable development?

Topics: The event will address the topics of women’s economic empowerment, the gender digital divide, gender equality, woman’s rights, inclusive digital transformation, digital financial inclusion, access to finance, online safety, digital equity, digital skills, STEM skills, women-led entrepreneurship, economic recovery, building forward better from COVID, diversity, equity, inclusion, women in peacekeeping and conflict avoidance, women migrants and refugees, women in leadership, women in innovation, female founders, the SDGs, sustainable development goals, and sustainable development.

Posted on

Women4Afghanistan

The recent withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan after twenty years of occupation created a power vacuum and resurgence of domestic forces that has triggered a humanitarian crisis.  The clamping down on human rights and freedoms, especially impacting girls and women, is forcing flight of hundreds of thousands of Afghan nationals to other parts of the globe. Some of the most high profile evacuations have been of the Afghan Girls Robotics and Girls Soccer teams. There are thousands of harrowing evacuation stories, not all of which have been successful, and countless more at-risk girls and women are still living in uncertainty in Afghanistan. 

In her role as Head of EU Delegation to the G20 Women20 stakeholder interest group, Cheryl Miller, DLI Director, played an instrumental role in delivering a Declaration of Support for Afghan Women and Girls to G20 leaders, including EC President von der Leyen and US President Biden, ahead of a 24 August urgent G7 meeting on Afghanistan. President von der Leyen’s remarks there focused on the plight of Afghan girls and women: “We need to help mostly those who are at immediate risk. And those are women, girls and children, who make up the vast majority of internally displaced people – 80% of the internally displaced people in Afghanistan are women and girls.”

As Afghan refugees attempt to make their way to other countries, they will need support – for evacuating from Afghanistan, arriving to a new location, and in assimilating long-term as economic, political and social actors in their adopted homes. An initiative called Women4Afghanistan was launched by Anne Ravanona and Katharina Miller, EU delegates to the G20/W20, in order to rally support for Afghan girls and women on this path.  More information on how to contribute to this critical work may be found here: 

http://www.women4afghanistan.org/

As Afghan refugees arrive and begin the process of integrating into their new home communities, it will be up to programs like AMIF and the ATHENA project to specifically support Afghan women and their sister refugees from around the world, by delivering on its remit to promote entrepreneurship by women migrants. DLI and the ATHENA partners look forward to the opportunity to support the women and girls of Afghanistan, and women migrants from all over the world, in integrating and achieving financial independence for these most vulnerable. 

Posted on

DLI Founder is EU Digital Champion

On 21 November in Brussels, Cheryl Miller Van Dyck, founding director of the Digital Leadership Institute International (DLII.org), was recognised by the Financial Times and Google as one of 100 digital champions of Europe.  Miller Van Dyck, who for ten years has led global efforts to increase participation of girls and women in technology sectors, was credited as being a leader and influencer in “promoting digital transformation in Europe.”  Miller Van Dyck and her 99 cohorts were selected from among over 4000 nominations by a jury of their peers representing industry and the public sector.  The digital champions report and event are part of an ongoing Financial Times series on “Europe’s Road to Growth.”

Read the full report here (Article/Image Page 21).

Posted on

Support Digital Inclusion at the G20

On 28-29 May, as part of the OECD Forum in Paris, DLI Director, Ms. Cheryl Miller, joined a group of international delegates for a W20 Roundtable on Digital Inclusion as part of G20 meetings hosted by Argentina in 2018.  The W20 Paris gathering, attended by representatives of twelve countries and key public and private sector actors, resulted in the W20 Argentina 2018 Communiqué on Digital Inclusion which will be promoted at the Women 20 Summit taking place 30 September to 3 October 2018 in Buenos Aires.

Individuals and organizations are encouraged to share the findings of the W20 Communiqué on Digital Inclusion with their G20 decision-makers and representatives in order to garner support for its broader acceptance and uptake by the G20 in 2018.

The aim of W20 is to influence the agenda of the decision-making bodies of the G20 with a view to impacting public policies in order to increase women’s participation in the economies and societies of their countries.

Posted on

DLI Founder Appointed to EU Digital Skills Board

On 28 September in Brussels, Ms. Cheryl Miller, Founder and Director of the Brussels-based Digital Leadership Institute, joined the first meeting of the Governing Board of the European Commission’s Digital Skill and Jobs Coalition, to which Ms. Miller has been appointed for a two-year term.

According to the Commission, the aim of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition Governing Board is to “provide strategic leadership and give high-level advice to improve the functioning and the impact of the Coalition, as well as monitoring its overall progress.” The Governing Board also represents the views of the Coalition partners at European level, and acts as a link between pledgers, national Coalitions and social partners.

At its first meeting, Ms. Miller accepted to lead the Governing Board’s work on “digital skills for ICT experts,” one of four digital skills pillars treated as priorities by the Coalition.  Ms. Miller and her colleagues will provide recommendations in these areas to the new European Commissioner for the Digital Single Market, Ms. Mariya Gabriel, in the context of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition Conference, taking place in Brussels on 7 December.

Ms. Miller joins representatives of eleven other Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition stakeholders in the Governing Board, whose organisations represent pledging members, national coalitions, and Coalition social partners.

Posted on

DLI Launches Europe’s First Female Tech Incubator

On 25 October in Brussels, the Digital Leadership Institute launched Digital Brusselles, Europe’s first female tech incubator, with the mission of promoting inclusive digital transformation by increasing leadership of girls and women in the digital society. The launch event, which took place as part of the first Open Door Day at BeCentral, was supported by the Digital Belgium Skills Fund and dozens of DLI partners, and attended by hundreds of DLI community members.

Ms. Saskia Van Uffelen, CEO of Ericsson Belux and Digital Champion of Belgium, provided a keynote to kick off the launch event and was joined in a panel on “The Heart of Inclusive Digital Transformation,” moderated by Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, by luminaries from the Belgian and European technology ecosystem noted below:

The opening panel was followed with inspiring talks by Ms. Manon Van Hoorebeke, 2014 Digital Girl of the Year, and Ms. Christine Gerpheide, Senior Cloud Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services. Over the course of the afternoon, Ms. Sandrine Droubaix — DJ Sand — and Ms. Valentina Càla, DLI Digital Creative Officer, led hands-on digital music composition workshops for participants of the Digital Muse After School program and BeCentral’s Open Door Day .