WEBVTT

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Almost one year ago -
it was February, I believe, 2019 -

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I was browsing in the Internet,
and I saw this.

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Women built the tech industry.

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Then they were pushed out.

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Pretty powerful headline, don't you think?

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Actually, this is true.

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Women were at the forefront
of the tech industry

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back when technologist jobs
were considered menial, akin to typists.

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In 1946, the US military
selected a team of people

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to work on the world's first computer.

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Guess what.

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More than 50 percent were women.

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The lady in the picture
is Margaret Hamilton.

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She was the head of the coding team
that charted Apollo 11's path to the moon.

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Another most renown lady 
of those times was Grace Hopper.

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Grace Hopper was a US Admiral
who invented the first compiler.

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It was actually her programming
and coding skills

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that enabled the United States
to model the impact of the atomic bomb.

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Let's look at some numbers.

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Thirty-seven percent is the estimated,
by the US federal government,

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number of women, percentage of women,

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that were taking computer studies
between the '70s and the '90s.

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This was actually the peak.

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Thirty-seven percent, early '90s,

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was the peak in the percentage of women
who attended computer science fields.

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At that time, the conditions
of working in the tech industry

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were not so glamorous,

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but the women were known
for their meticulous work ethic

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and their attention to detail.

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One of the great anecdotal
stories of that time

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was how Grace Hopper
identified the first-ever computer bug.

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She traced a glitch in the system
to a moth trapped in a relay wire.

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Today in the US, there's an annual
conference every year named after her

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to celebrate women in computing.

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What happened afterwards

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is that the computer industry
became more lucrative.

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The tech jobs were of a bit better status

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and higher paid.

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So the tech companies
were looking to find the best profile

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that would fit an engineering job.

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But they didn't know,
because the coding skill was really new.

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So what they did is they developed
a personality test,

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a personality test
that would help them identify

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what a good computer engineer
would look like.

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That personality test
was actually favoring people

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who were not so social,
who were not so extroverted.

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It was the birth of the geeky profile.

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(Laughter)

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A computer engineer
could only be nerdy and antisocial.

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That was the industry demographic
from then on, okay?

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So what we know today as a stereotype,

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of the male who's nerdy
and anti-social as a programmer,

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was actually part of this vicious circle
that started at that time.

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As the personality test favored more men,

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then the industry got more
representation of men,

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then that fueled the public perception

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that computer engineering
is only suitable for men.

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So where we are today.

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In 2018, it was March, I think -
March 8th, International Women's Day -

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the European Commission announced a study.

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The study was named
"Women in the digital age,"

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and, actually, it has
a lot of concerning facts

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about the representation of women
in the European tech industry.

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So today, there are four times more men

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taking up computer-related fields
or tech-related fields.

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Based on the same study,

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out of 1,000 female graduates
of universities in Europe,

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24 are studying in tech-related fields,

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but then only six
end up working in a digital job.

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For every 1,000 of male graduates,

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49 end up working in a digital job.

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What's even more concerning

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is that women are leaving the digital jobs
more often than men.

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Actually, in 2015, it was measured

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that nine percent of women
left the industry.

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The same year, the percentage
for men was 1.2 percent.

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And this happened
at the age between 30 and 44,

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which is, of course,
the primary working age.

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At the same time, it is the age that most
Europeans are having their first child.

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So the gender gap is increasing.

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If we talk about digital entrepreneurship,

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the European Startup Monitor

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measures the startups
that have female founders to 14.8 percent.

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Startups that have only female founders

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got only five percent of the global
venture capital investment.

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And the average investment
on the female-founded startups

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is dropping every year
of the last five years.

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I graduated computer engineering
in the early '90s.

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It was the time that the gender gap
was not so visible in the numbers,

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but, of course, the unconscious
and sometimes conscious bias was there.

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I had to sign up for volunteering work
at the computer center in the university

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and, of course, miss a lot of parties
outside of school to be taken seriously

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by my professors and my classmates.

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You see, I was not the geeky profile,

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and femininity at that time was actually
adversely related to brilliance.

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When I got into the professional life,
things seemed easier and better.

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I was learning everyday,
I was growing every day,

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and I had respect from my colleagues.

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And then I decided that it was about time
to move up with my career,

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to move on, to develop my career.

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"You can't - you are a mother.

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What would your husband say?

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Who would take care of your kids?

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How will you manage the long hours?"

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Surprisingly, nobody asked me before
how I managed the long hours

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when I had to deliver a complex project
with quality and on time.

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(Applause)

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My husband is in this room today,
and I guess he's smiling.

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(Applause)

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Today, I am thankful
for this painful moment of truth

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because it made me stronger,

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because it fueled my determination.

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So I worked really hard to make it happen.

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I worked really hard
to make my dream come true.

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And, of course,
there was advancements,

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and, of course, there were setbacks,

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and, of course, I was faced
with unconscious bias many times,

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which was not only gender,
I have to tell you.

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In the years of the Greek crisis,

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I had to to overcome the unconscious bias
that the Greeks are incompetent, okay?

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Very incompetent and lazy
and corrupt, okay?

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(Laughter)

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But I made it.

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And today, today I feel
I need to share this story

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because I want to empower young women
to follow up on her dreams.

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So this evolution that I have lived,

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because technology has been growing
exponentially over the past years,

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was not an inclusive one.

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More than 50 percent of the population
has not been part of that.

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But is it only gender that was left out?

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It was not only gender,

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because diversity doesn't have to do
only with whether you are male or female.

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It has to do with age.

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It has to do with ethnicity.

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It has to do with color.

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It has to do with religion or culture.

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Take for example the older people today.

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Today, we are living in a time

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that we are having for the first time

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five generations at the same time
in the workplace.

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In the next five years, analysts expect

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that 25 percent of the workforce
will be over the age of 55.

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How do we make sure
these people are not excluded?

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How do we drive
cross-generational collaboration?

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How do we give opportunities
for them to thrive

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and to leverage
the benefits of digitization?

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Why is this discussion
happening right now?

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It is happening first of all because
there is a business case around it.

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Based on McKinsey,

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companies who have top female executives

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and have good diversity
rate in their executive boards

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are 35 percent more likely
to be more profitable.

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The European Union has estimated
the annual productivity costs

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of this nine percent of women
leaving the workplace

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to be 16 billion euros.

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But it's not only the country
or the company financials.

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Diversity is an action.

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Inclusion is a culture.

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Belonging is a feeling.

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And the need for all three
is deeply human.

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When we empower people,

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when we give them the opportunity

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to bring their strengths
and the best talents,

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then we all win.

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And today, it's even more than that.

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With the advance
of technology, such as AI,

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a lot of things, a lot of activities -
like, for example, recruiting -

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have been outsourced.

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So in 2018, there was a Reuters article

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that revealed that one of the major
e-commerce companies globally,

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a machine-learning-fueled recruiting bot,

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was disqualifying women over men.

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Τhe machine-learning algorithm

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used CVs that were gathered in the company
for a period of more than 10 years

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to learn and identify patterns

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that would drive
what would a good candidate be.

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Of course, those CVs
were coming mostly from men.

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So the bot, when it was finding
words like "women" in the CV -

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like participation
in a women's soccer club -

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it would disqualify that CV.

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Biases that exist in the data

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in a world that is becoming
more and more data-driven,

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in a world the decisions
are taken based on this data

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can be reproduced, can be reinforced,

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can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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I am Greek; I was raised in Greece.

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I was educated with the principles coming
from the ancient Greek philosophers.

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And as old-fashioned
as this might look today,

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it is actually some ethical values,
some timeless values

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that we need all to go back to.

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We need a new ethical coach
in technology today

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that would earn trust,

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that would help technology be trustworthy,

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that would make us believe
that it will be used in a fair way.

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So when we talk about new technologies,
like artificial intelligence,

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we want them to be fair,
to not have biases.

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We want them to be transparent

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for us to understand how data are used,
how decisions are made.

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We want them to work
in a safe and reliable way.

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We want them to respect our privacy.

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We want them to make sure
they include and they empower everyone.

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So we know we need inclusive technology.

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To do that, I would refer
to Simon Sinek's talk "Start with why."

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"Why" matters.

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Why are we building technology?

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Technology is here
to enhance our capabilities,

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to help us make smarter decisions faster,

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to help us make less mistakes.

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"Why" matters.

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Then "who."

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Who's involved
in building the technology?

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We need more diverse teams
building the technology.

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"Who" matters.

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And then, finally, "how,"

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how transparent we are about
the way we are building technology.

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How are we using the data?

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How are the machines learning?

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"How" matters.

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In an evolving digital world,

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as we welcome robots,
holograms, artificial intelligence

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and more and more automation,

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people are getting more and more scared
what the future will be.

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What will be the future of jobs?

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What will be the future of us as humans?

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The future is as good as we make it.

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Technology has always been here
to enhance our capabilities.

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If you ask me, what would be
our future as humans?

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I would tell you,

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we need to get back to our core identity,

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to the core of who we are,

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and that's empathy.

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Empathy is not a "nice to have."

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Empathy is absolutely essential
to us as humans into the future.

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Empathy is about overcoming biases.

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It's about respecting each other.

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It's about understanding
or trying to understand.

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It's about listening.

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It's about showing compassion.

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It's about offering support.

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The future will be good

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if it only includes and embraces
every talent on earth.

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The future will be good
if it only relies on empathy.

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In a digital world that would respect
every individual's talents,

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that would empower everybody
to get high, higher, highest,

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these headlines will not be there anymore.

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Today, I have one ask of you.

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Let's make this decision collectively.

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Inclusion starts with I.

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It starts with each and every one of us.

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Let's act, let's listen, let's understand,
let's respect each other.

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Let's empathize.

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Let's make this evolving
digital world a more inclusive place.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)