Tag: w20

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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.

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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.

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DLI Update – Fall 2023

The Digital Leadership Institute Team is actively involved in outreach activities with partners and stakeholders around the world that promote ESTEAM* leadership by girls and women. Below are outreach activities in which DLI was involved in Fall 2023.

*Entrepreneurship and Art powered by Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

15 June 2023 – G20 Women20 India 2023 Summit (Mahabalipuram, India):  On 15 June 2023 in Mahabalipuran, India, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  joined the final meeting of the G20 Women20 India 2023 Presidency in her joint capacities as Co-HOD of the EU Delegation and Chair of the W20 India Skills Development, Education and Labour Force Participation Task Force.

10-19 July 2023 – UN High Level Policy Forum on Sustainable Development (New York, New York):  On 15 July 2023 in New York City, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  joined a side-event hosted by the Women’s Major Group of the UN High Level Policy Forum on Sustainable Development, in her capacity as Co-HOD of the EU W20 Delegation and DLI Director.

16-19 September 2023 – UN SDG Summit 2023 (New York, New York):  On 16-19 September in New York City, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  joined the UN General Assembly convening of the SDG Summit 2023 and SDG Action Weekend, in her capacity as Co-Head of the EU W20 Delegation and DLI Director.

20 September 2023 – womenENcourage Conference (Trondheim, Norway):  On 20 September, Katja Legisa, DLI Entrepreneurship Director, contributed to a panel on Interventions and Initiatives of Gender Inclusion in Academia and Industry, as part of the ACM womENcourage conference in collaboration with the EUGAIN, European Network For Gender Balance in Informatics, a COST Action funded by the European Union.

28 September 2023 – Rethinking Harmony in Asia 2023 (Online):  28 September, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  provided a keynote on “Ensuring and Ethical and Safer Digital World,” as part of The Asian Network virtual conference on Rethinking Harmony in Asia 2023.

23-24 November 2023 – UNESCO STEM Alliance Conference (Venice, Italy):  On 23-24 November in Venice, Italy, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  joined a panel at the UNESCO STEM Alliance Conference as part of her recent UNESCO research on “Gender in STEM in Southeast Europe.”

To browse past activities with DLI and our partners, please click here.  Be sure to also visit our calendar, sign up for the DLI Newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram in order to keep up with DLI events and activities!

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DLI Update – Fall 2022

The DLI Board are actively involved in outreach activities with partners and stakeholders around the world that promote ESTEAM* leadership by girls and women. Find out more below about our outreach activities in Autumn 2022, including the G20 Ministerial Conference in Bali where EU Commissioner for Equality Helena Dalli and DLI Founder and Head of the EU W20 Delegation, Cheryl Miller, represented the European Union. For upcoming events by DLI and our partners please visit here, and have a look at our calendar.

*Entrepreneurship and Art powered by Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

13-14 November 2022 –  G20 Women20 Indonesia Post-Summit Event (Bali & Online): On 13-14 November 2022, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  joined the G20 Women20 Indonesia Post-Summit Event, a G20 Leaders Summit Side Event, in her capacity as Co-head of the EU Delegation to the G20 Women20 engagement group.

24-25 August 2022 –  G20 Ministerial Conference on Women’s Empowerment (Bali, Indonesia): On 24-25 August 2022 in Bali, Indonesia, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  joined the G20 Ministerial Conference on Women’s Empowerment in her capacity as Co-head of the EU Delegation to the G20 Women20 engagement group, and as member of the EU G20 Ministerial Delegation led by European Commissioner for Equality Helena Dalli.

20 September – Digital Inclusion, Policy and Research Conference (Online): Online on 20 September 2022, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  presented her forthcoming chapter on “Digital Equity and Women’s Economic Agency,” as part of the Gender and Digital Inequalities panel at the Digital Inclusion, Policy and Research Conference (DIPRC) hosted by the University of Liverpool,  Digital Poverty Alliance, and UK Digital Leaders network.

14 October 2022 – W7 Germany Outreach Event “We are Here! We are loud, united against the backlash!” (Berlin, Germany): On 14 October 2022 in Berlin, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, joined the W7 Germany outreach event “We are Here! We are loud, united against the backlash!” where G7 Gender Equality Ministers met to discuss how to achieve a more equitable G7. Cheryl joined the event as Head of the EU Delegation to the G20 Women20.

17-18 October 2022 – WEgate Summit (Brussels & Online): Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  joined the 17 October final event of the European WEgate project, the WEgate Summit, and contributed to a peer-learning session on “Reaching women’s economic independence through entrepreneurship and self-employment.”  On 18 October, Cheryl also joined a European Institutions study mission with representatives of women entrepreneurship organisations from across Europe in order to collectively advocate for a strong European policy framework supporting women entrepreneurs. 

To browse past activities with DLI and our partners, please click here. Be sure to also visit our calendar, sign up for the DLI Newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram in order to keep up with DLI events and activities!

DLI.jpg

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DLI, EU Women20 promote Digital Equity for SDGs

On 5 May 2022 online, the Brussels-based Digital Leadership Institute and EU Women20 Delegation to the G20 jointly organized an official side-event of the UN Science, Technology and Innovation Forum on the SDGs (“STI Forum”), on the topic of “Digital Equity for Women’s Economic Agency.” The event addressed the intersecting priorities of closing the gender digital divide and promoting women’s financial independence as economic actors—namely as entrepreneurs, experts and leaders in critical STEM sectors, especially Technology—as an explicit objective of international development policy and as the surest path to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. 

Key recommendations gleaned from the gathering include the following:

  1. Prioritize development funding and programs with an explicit focus on closing the digital gender divide — i.e. through digital skills programs and actions to increase access to and use of technology and infrastructure, for girl and women beneficiaries;
  2. Prioritize development funding and programs with an explicit focus on increasing women’s economic agency through technology, e.g. by supporting women as entrepreneurs in tech-driven and tech-enabled startup, and through paid apprenticeship programs with job placement for women in emerging technology fields such as AI, cybersecurity, big data, machine learning, etc.;
  3. Increase capacity-building for the fore-mentioned activities by supporting best practice-sharing, networking building and by promoting opportunities to replicate and scale successful regional programs tackling “digital equity and women’s economic agency” in all directions and across global geographies (North-South, South-North, North-North, South-South);
  4. Increase structural support and promote a healthy ecosystem that supports women as independent economic actors by addressing underlying inequities women face as entrepreneurs and as leaders in digital fields, including by: i) setting ambitious gender-specific development program goals for reach, participation and program success; ii) collecting and sharing gender- and sex-disaggregated program data; iii) ear-marking development funds with the specific mission to close the gender digital gap for women’s economic empowerment;
  5. Take concrete action to ensure women’s equal access to and use of: i) Digital/ICT training programs and related resources, including acceleration, incubation and (IT) leadership-training programs; ii) entrepreneurship finance and investment, especially venture capital, and other resources (mentorship, coaching, financial literacy); and iii) distribution channels and supply chains, including for international trade and e-commerce, with specific targets for women’s equal participation in public sector procurement;
  6. Build and deploy programs that specifically focus on increasing technology leadership–as entrepreneurs, experts and leaders–by mature women, women in transition, migrant women and women living in rural areas.

Panel interventions reflected a broad and ambitious spectrum of key voices promoting Digital Equity and Women’s Economic Agency from around the world, including:

The Digital Equity event was streamed live on the STI Forum platform and DLI YouTube channel, and joined remotely by virtual participants. It took the form of a panel discussion moderated by Cheryl Miller, DLI Director and Co-head of EU G20 Women20 Delegation, with support from Loredana Bucseneanu, DLI Development Director, and key G20 Women20 partners including: Katharina Miller, Co-head of EU Delegation; Tamara Dancheva, EU Delegate; and Virginia Littlejohn, Co-head of US Delegation. 

A video of the event is available here (Passcode: FaPH3Yf), and inquiries about this and future events may be directed to DLI. 

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DLI Update – Spring 2022

The DLI Board are actively involved in outreach activities with partners and stakeholders around the world that promote ESTEAM* leadership by girls and women. Find out more below about our outreach activities in Spring 2022, including a 17 March #BreaktheBias event celebrating International Women’s Day. For upcoming events by DLI and our partners please visit here, and have a look at our calendar.

*Entrepreneurship and Art powered by Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

5 January 2022  – Coding Over Cocktails Podcast (Online): On 5 January 2022, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, joined the Coding Over Cocktails Podcast to discuss opportunities presented by the pandemic for organisations to drive inclusive digital transformation.

12 January 2022 – Women Empowerment in Women20 (Online) – In the capacity of Co-head of EU Delegation and Co-chair of the G20 Women20 Italy Digital Equity Working Group, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  joined the 12 January webinar on the topic of Women Empowerment in Women20:  Women20 Recommendations and their adoption in the G20 Leaders’ Declaration.  The event was hosted by the outgoing W20 Italy Presidency with participation of the 2022 G20 Indonesia Women20 Presidency.

February 2022 – Staying Global While Staying Home (Online):  Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  joined the February edition of NewComm Global Group‘s Staying Global While Staying Home webcast to discuss opportunities presented by the recovery for driving inclusive digital transformation.

15 February 2022 –  W20 Indonesia Policy Dialogue:  Freedom from Discrimination:  (Likupang, Indonesia & Online): On 15 February 2022, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  joined the first policy dialogue side-event of the Indonesia G20 Women20 Presidency on the topic of Freedom from Discrimination: Historical Journey from Japan to Indonesia, taking place online and in Likupang, Indonesia.

8 March 2022 – IWD2022 Women in Diplomacy Luncheon (Brussels): On 8 March 2022, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  joined a luncheon, hosted by the UK, US and Canadian Embassies to Belgium, to celebrate International Women’s Day 2022 and promote increased participation of women in diplomacy.

 

17 March 2022 – AWS #BreakTheBias Event (Brussels & Online): On 17 March 2022, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  contributed to the 17 March #BreakTheBias event hosted by Amazon Web Services EMEA, and spoke on the topic of “Overview of Gender Equality in the AI Ecosystem: Where Are We and Where do We Want To Go?“

To browse past activities with DLI and our partners, please click here. Be sure to also visit our calendar, sign up for the DLI Newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram in order to keep up with DLI events and activities!

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DLI Update – Summer 2021

The DLI Board are actively involved in outreach activities with partners and stakeholders around the world that promote ESTEAM* leadership by girls and women. Find out more below about our outreach activities in Summer 2021, including participation at the G20 Italy 2021 Women20 Summit in Rome where the G20 Italy 2021 Women20 Communiqué was delivered with contributions by all delegations including the EU led by Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck. For upcoming activities by DLI and its partners please visit here, and have a look at our calendar for events organised by DLI.

*Entrepreneurship and Art powered by Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

4 June – “AI and Business” BSBI Café Scientifique (Online): On 4 June, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, joined an online panel on the topic of “AI and Business,” as part of the Café Scientifique series hosted by Berlin School of Business and Innovation.

17 June – EU Parliament Workshop “Digital Gender Gap” (Online): On 17 June, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, spoke at an online workshop on The Digital Gender Gap, addressing the subject of “Access to Funding for Women Entrepreneurs in the Digital Ecosystem,” for Members of European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research & Energy (ITRE) Committee.

23 June – “Impact of the W20 in the Lives of European Women” Panel (Online): Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, joined a panel discussion, with opening remarks by Vice Presidents of the EU Parliament and European Commission, on the “Impact of the W20 in the Lives of European Women,” hosted by the G20 Women20.

13-15 July – G20 Women20 Italy Summit (Rome & Online): On 13-15 July, 2021 G20 Italy Women20, the women’s stakeholder engagement group to the G20 meetings in Italy, hosted the 2021 Women20 Summit in Rome, Italy. Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, participated at the Summit as Head of the EU W20 Delegation and Co-chair of the W20 Italy Digital Working Group.

Be sure to visit our Calendar and Outreach Activities page to keep up with DLI events and activities! You can also and sign up for the DLI Newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram!

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DLI Update – Spring 2021

The DLI Board are actively involved in outreach activities with partners and stakeholders around the world that promote ESTEAM* leadership by girls and women. Find out more below about our outreach activities in Spring 2021, including election of DLI Director, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck as new WEP Chairwoman and President. For upcoming activities by DLI and its partners please visit here, and have a look at our calendar for events organised by DLI.

*Entrepreneurship and Art powered by Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

12 April – WEgate Community Advisory Council (Online): On 12 April, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, was invited to an online meeting of the Community Advisory Council for the WEgate project, in order to matters of advocacy, the campaign for Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, and other issues central to promoting women-led entrepreneurship in Europe and beyond.

29 April – WEP General Assembly (Online): DLI Founding Director, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, joined the annual General Assembly of the Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) as member of the WEP Board of Directors. At this meeting, Ms. Miller Van Dÿck was elected new WEP Chairwoman of the board.

7 May – EU Women20 Delegation Meeting (online): On 7 May, the EU Delegation of the Women20, women’s stakeholder engagement group to the G7/G20, gathered online for their monthly meetings in preparation of the 2021 G20 meetings in Italy. As Head of Delegation, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, chaired this gathering of the 2021 EU delegation.

11 May – Italian G20 Women20 Heads of Delegation Meeting (Online): On 11 May, DLI Founding Director, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, joined a meeting of the Heads of Delegation for Women20 Italia 2021, the women’s stakeholder engagement group to the 2021 G20 meetings in Italy. Ms. Miller Van Dÿck participated in the meeting as Head of the EU W20 Delegation.

11 May – Delphi Economic Forum VI (Athens & Online): DLI Founding Director, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, joined a panel on the topic of “Female Entrepreneurship & the Financing Gap” at the Delphi Economic Forum VI, that took place in Athens and online 10-15 May 2021.

28 May – G20 Women20 Italy Plenary Meeting (Online): On 28 May, DLI Founding Director, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, joined a Plenary meeting of Women20 Italia 2021, the women’s stakeholder engagement group to the 2021 G20 meetings in Italy. Ms. Miller Van Dÿck participated in the meeting as Head of the EU W20 Delegation and Co-chair of the W20 Italy Digital Working Group.

Be sure to visit our Calendar and Outreach Activities page to keep up with DLI events and activities! You can also and sign up for the DLI Newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram!

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DLI Update – Winter 2021

The DLI Board are actively involved in outreach activities with partners and stakeholders around the world that promote ESTEAM* leadership by girls and women. Find out more below about our outreach activities in Winter 2021, including launch of the 2021 EU Delegation to the G20 Women20 which took pace at end-January. For upcoming activities by DLI and its partners please visit here, and have a look at our calendar for events organised by DLI.

*Entrepreneurship and Art powered by Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

27 January – EU Women20 Delegation Kickoff Meeting (Online): On 27 January, the EU Delegation of the Women20, women’s stakeholder engagement group to the G7/G20, kicked off online ahead of the 2021 G20 meetings in Italy. As new Head of Delegation, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, chaired the inaugural gathering of the 2021 EU Women20 Delegation.

10 February – Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition Governing Board Meeting (Online): On 10 February, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, joined the final meeting of the inaugural European Commission Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition governing board ahead of a call for new board members commencing in March. Ms. Miller Van Dÿck has served on the DSJC governing board through a critical stage in its development and growth, beginning with its inception in 2017.

22-23 February – Italy Women20 Kickoff (Rome & Online): On 22-23 February, DLI Founding Director, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, joined the kickoff meeting of W20 Italia 2021, the women’s stakeholder engagement group to the 2021 G20 meetings in Italy. Ms. Miller Van Dÿck participated in the meeting as Head of the EU W20 Delegation and as Co-Chair of the W20 Italia 2021 Digital Working Group.

4 March – WEP Board of Directors Meeting (Online): DLI Founding Director, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, joined the quarterly Board of Directors meeting of the Women Entrepreneurship Platform, which took place on 4 March online.

8 March – UN Observance of International Women’s Day (Online): On 8 March, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, joined UN Women’s Observance of International Women’s Day 2021, aligned with the priority theme of the 65th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, on “Women in Leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world, on the way to the Generation Equality Forum,” which took place online.

9 March – WEgate Peer-Learning Workshop on Women’s Entrepreneurship (Online): On 9 March, the WEgate project organised its third online peer-learning workshop on the topic of “Women’s Entrepreneurship” with participation from DLI executive members Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, Katja Legisa and Loredana Bucseneanu.

11 March – AWS Cloud Ambassador Meetup (Online): Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, joined the 11 March online meetup of AWS Cloud Ambassadors, in which role Ms. Miller Van Dÿck and her peers work to promote uptake of emerging and future technology skills among vulnerable communities, especially girls and women, around the world.

14-26 March – 65th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (Online): From 14 to 26 March, UN Women organized the 65th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Global civil society organizations also supported the session with a series of virtual events organized via NGO CSW and its partners.

15 March – Council of Europe “Digital Gender Gaps & Opportunities” Event (Online): As a side-event of the 65th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the Council of Europe, National Council of German Women’s Oganizations, and their partners organized an online event addressing the subject of “Digital Gender Gaps and Opportunities.”

23 March – European Parliament “Policy Options for the Ethical Governance of Disruptive Technologies” (Online): On 23 March online, the European Parliament’s Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA) organized an online event on the subject of “Policy Options for the Ethical Governance of Disruptive Technologies,” including with major EU-funded projects,SHERPA, SIENNA and PANELFIT, former to which DLI’s Founding Director, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, acts as an adviser.

26 March – Mommypreneurs Closing Gala 2021 (Online): On 26 March, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, provided a keynote address to the graduates of the 2021 cohort of the Mommypreneurs, a project reaching 2300 women with entrepreneurship skills from across seven countries in Europe.

Be sure to visit our Calendar and Outreach Activities page to keep up with DLI events and activities! You can also and sign up for the DLI Newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram!

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DLI Update – Autumn 2020

The DLI Board are actively involved in outreach activities with partners and stakeholders around the world that promote ESTEAM* leadership by girls and women. Find out more about our outreach activities in Autumn 2020 below, including an awesome high-level panel on global best practices for women’s enterpreneurship which took place as part of the Women20 event of the 2020 G20 meetings in Saudi Arabia. Please visit our calendar for events organised by DLI.

*STEM powered by Entrepreneurship and Arts

19 August – AWS Cloud Ambassador Quarterly Meeting (Online): On 19 August, Che Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  joined an online meeting of the 2020 global cohort of AWS Cloud Ambassadors.

16 September – European Digital Academy Strategic Seminar (Online): On 16 September, Che Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director and Loredana Bucseneanu, DLI Director of Development, contributed to a strategic seminar to scope and define the work of the forthcoming European Digital Academy, a European Project project led by European SchoolNet, the association of European Ministries of Education.

6 October – SHERPA Project Stakeholder Board Meeting (Online): On 6 October 2020, Che Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, joined the second annual meeting of the SHERPA Stakeholder Board Meeting, taking place online. The mission of the SHERPA Project is to analyse how AI and big data analytics impact ethics and human rights

20-22 October – W20 Saudi Arabia Meetings (Online and in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia): On 20-22 October, Che Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, contributed to the W20 Saudi Arabia 2020 meetings of the G20 Saudi Arabia 2020 process, as EU delegation member, expert to the Digital Inclusion Working Group, and Co-chair of the Digital Entrepreneurship task force of the Women’s Entrepreneurship WG. On 21 October, Che also contributed to a Women20 panel on best practices supporting Women’s Entrepreneurship on the topic of Digital Inclusion.

Be sure to visit our Calendar and Outreach Activities page to keep up with DLI events and activities! You can also and sign up for the DLI Newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram!

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