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Waveform @ Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society: Beyond Recovery - Designing an Inclusive World
#WFGM20 #Women4STEM #Women4AI #Women4Business #Women4Inclusion #Women4ClimateAction
The Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society is an annual event created with the scope of bringing together influential business, institutional and political leaders from the EU and beyond, prominent speakers from varied industries and countries with the scope of identifying the problems that affect women and minorities around the world and working together towards an inclusive world, under the “Beyond Recovery: Designing an Inclusive World” title.
The event was attended by political figures, high level management of the most successful global companies, experts from various domains, among which Mrs. Ursula von der Leyen, President European Commission, Mrs. Anita Bhatia, UN Women, Assistant-Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director, Mrs. Andrea Galego, BCG GAMMA CTO Managing Director and Partner, Mrs. Fabiola Gianotti, CERN Director General, Mrs. Sara Cheng, Twitter Managing Director Greater China, Mrs. Chiara Corazza, Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society Managing Director, and many others.
The event was not only dedicated for women, being attended by prominent male figures from the political and business environments, among which Mr. Philippe Ducom, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical President ExxonMobil Europe, Mr. Georgio Siracusa, Sirastrategy Ltd President, Mr. Bruno Le Maire, Government of France Minister of the Economy, Finance and Recovery, and many others.
As a Waveform delegate, Ingrid Lazar, Founder & CEO, attended the Women’s Forum Global Meeting 2020, returning inspired and motivated: “Women must have a louder voice in STEM and in the politics of every organization, and participate in creating a more inclusive world, a world where everyone’s needs are met and where everyone feels safe and empowered to be its best self”.
The key themes the Women’s Forum brought up were:
#Women4Inclusion: Leadership for a more inclusive, resilient world
#Women4AI: Ethical artificial intelligence
#Women4STEM: Shaping the future of work
#Women4Business: Empowered business
#Women4ClimateAction: Scalable climate action
#Women4Health: Equal access to health
The speakers discussed that an inclusive world can be created by understanding the societal needs. Recognizing that women everywhere are affected by factors like job loss due to the SARS-COV-2 pandemic, poor maternal policies and income gaps between men and women, career breaks as a result of childcare and elderly care, reduced or lack of science education, the rise of domestic abuse, and many others, and identifying the big unsolved problems in society, women empowerment to get involved might help solving problems like climate change or discrepancies in healthcare worldwide.
In STEM and AI the number of women undertaking specialized jobs in EU is 20%, whereas men undertake 80% of the STEM jobs. In the meantime, STEM jobs have risen more than 3 times in the last 3 years, uncovering endless opportunities for women and under-represented minorities for growth.
Changing the perception of women towards STEM and science and creating the environment that nourishes science education in women must start from young girls’ education, but it also has to address middle aged or older women to help them develop their careers.
Bridging the gap between men and women at work, whether these gaps are financial, influential, or other, cannot be done by finger pointing, inclusiveness must start as a collaboration between men and women, between majority and minority, trust must be built based on knowledge and accountability. The diversity of knowledge though resource diversity benefits the business, empowering and giving voice to the unheard might shed light over unexpected or previously unrecognized problems and might even bring up the solution.
Representation is important for the well-being of the business and of the society.
The vast majority of healthcare workers worldwide are women, yet they are the ones having the most uncovered needs, healthcare services for women worldwide lacking gender specificity or ease of access.
Building solutions to address women’s problems in healthcare and providing equal access to healthcare must start from recognizing the uncovered needs.
“There’s a lot at stake but making a difference always takes courage.” - Amanda Gorman, Inaugural Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, Founder @1pen1page, Activist.