World changers: the role of female talent in ICTs

Technology is advancing at an unstoppable pace, transforming every aspect of our lives. However, female participation in this strategic sector remains a challenge. Encouraging the inclusion of girls and young women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines is key to building a more diverse, innovative and just digital future.

Evidence of this reality is the International Day of Girls in ICT, an initiative launched in 2010 by the United Nations to encourage female participation in technology. Although the official date is commemorated on the fourth Thursday of April, activities, meetings and campaigns are held throughout the month that share the same purpose: to make female talent visible, promote the access of girls and young women to STEM disciplines, and break down the cultural, educational and social barriers that still hinder their full inclusion in the sector.

Although their representation in the sector is still less than 30% globally, the impact of women in areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics, programming and video game development is increasingly decisive.

To commemorate this date, UDIT, University of Design, Innovation and Technology pays tribute to some of the female figures who are leading change in this field and serving as an inspiration for new generations. Here are some of those who are helping to change the world.

• Nuria Oliver (Spain), PhD from MIT and leader in ethical artificial intelligence at the Ellis Foundation Alicante. She is one of the most cited female researchers in computer science in Spain. She is known for her work on computational models of human behaviour, artificial intelligence, human-machine interaction, mobile computing and big data for social good.
• Kimberly Bryant (USA), founder of Black Girls Code, has empowered thousands of African-American and other minority girls through technology training, advocating for a more inclusive industry. In 2022, she founded Ascend Ventures, a new platform focused on women's leadership in technology.
• Anne-Marie Imafidon (Nigeria/UK), creator of Stemettes, has promoted girls' access to STEM careers, breaking stereotypes with her brilliant career in mathematics and computer science. Through workshops, mentoring, hackathons and real-life experiences in companies, Stemettes has reached more than 60,000 young people in the UK and other countries around the world.
• Joy Buolamwini (Canada/Ghana). A computer engineer and mathematician, during her time at MIT, she discovered that facial recognition algorithms did not correctly recognise female and dark-skinned faces, including her own. That personal experience led her to found the Algorithmic Justice League (AJL) in 2016, an organisation that fights algorithmic bias and promotes a fairer, more ethical and transparent artificial intelligence. Its motto "who codes matters, how we code matters and why we code matters" has given voice to a new generation demanding more humane and responsible technologies.
• Pilar Manchón (Spain), PhD in Computational Linguistics from the University of Seville and Stanford University. She has led conversational assistant projects at Amazon Alexa and is an expert in natural language processing. She is currently Global Director of Artificial Intelligence Research Strategy at Google, where she drives projects related to explainable AI, ethics and algorithmic diversity.
• Fei-Fei Li (China), pioneer in computer vision, co-founder of AI4ALL (a non-profit organisation that encourages the participation of women in AI development) and professor at Stanford where she co-directs the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI). Between 2017 and 2018, she was also Chief Scientist of AI at Google Cloud, where she worked on integrating machine learning technologies into large-scale services. She is the creator of ImageNet, a massive visual database that revolutionised the development of deep learning and enabled unprecedented advances in image recognition.

The technology of today and tomorrow needs to incorporate more female voices that bring diversity, critical vision and transformative capacity. From its commitment to innovation, UDIT promotes an educational model that recognises the urgency of training and making female talent visible in STEM disciplines.