The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> SONAL ZAVERI: Hello, hello. Online participants, can you show your video and can you let me know if you can hear me?
>> LIMA MADOMI: Hi, Sonal. Yes, we can hear you. I can hear you. This is Lima.
>> JOYCE CHEN: Hi, Sonal, Joyce here.
>> ARINOLA AKINYEMI: Hi, Sonal. Arinola here.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Great. So, we are a full panel. Thank you very much.
Welcome, everybody. This is the session on "Breaking barriers: Empowering Women in the Internet Network."
Unfortunately, the way the camera is placed, I am unable to turn around and welcome each one of you. But thank you very much for coming to this session. My name is Sonal Zaveri. I'm the moderator of this session.
I am the GESI Advisor for the APNIC Foundation. And what we are planning to do is we have three speakers online and three speakers over here offline. And we will be going through a set of questions, and we hope that this will be a very interactive session. And I will pause at the end of every question and invite comments, questions, both from our audience sitting here, as well as online.
Before I turn and introduce my panelists, my esteemed panelists, and greet our online audience, I would like to just remind ourselves of some facts as we talk about the barriers that we need to break.
So, first fact, and I think we all know this, is that women are underrepresented in the tech industry. And there is a clear pipeline problem. So, in the STEM fields, women represent only 32% of graduates across the OECD courses. And girls and young women are socialized to pursue the softer disciplines: Education, sociology, journalism, health, and law.
And, of course, you may have some country variations. So, in India, women are more likely to pursue social sciences. And if you come to Indonesia, it may be education programmes. However, whichever country you represent, it will be the social norms that influence both the study and the career choices.
The other problem is that there is a, definitely, talent shortage in the workforce. And when women do make it to the tech workforce, and not all women who have studied in STEM make it to that tech workforce, there is a skewed representation with only 19%, 1-9, 19% at entry-level positions and midlevel, and only 10% in executive-level positions. And these numbers become smaller if we look at some of the specializations.
So, the network engineering field, for example, the women in network engineering has increased from only 8% in 2014 to 14% in 2020.
Fact number 2: Companies with diverse, gender-diverse teams, outperform by 15% when compared to those without gender diversity. And we have research that backs this up.
So, it's not just about reducing the gender gap. But there are tangible economic benefits of being gender friendly. And it brings innovation, it brings creativity, and we are ensured that the diverse end user demographics are considered in network solutions.
Fact number 3, I don't want to confuse inclusion and gender. Gender itself is a very complex issue. And it intersects with disability and other vulnerable groups. So, we really need to move from tokenistic participation to more meaningful ones. And let's never, ever forget that gender rights are human rights. And the Internet empowers human rights.
So, unless we increase the supply and demand generation to promote, change and encourage a positive deviance in the industry, we need to address the male-dominated norms.
Fact number 4: Women in the tech industry, including those in cybersecurity, DNS and network engineers have shattered stereotypes in a male-dominated field, and testimony to that is this panel of extremely experienced women who are going to speak to us about some of the challenges that they have overcome and how they are transforming the industry.
So, I'm going to quickly introduce my esteemed panel, an all-women panel. Amrita Choudhury, and she is sitting here to the right of me, she is an active member and contributor at national, regional and global Internet Governance platforms. I think everyone knows Amrita. She is always being hailed as we walk down the corridors. She serves as the Director of CCAOI, Chair of Asia Pacific Regional IGF, Chair of IGF Support Association, Chair of APRALO at ICANN, and the President of ISOC Delhi.
We have Joyce, who is online, and Joyce is APNIC's Senior Advisor for Strategic Engagement. She is responsible for managing key relationships with stakeholders, such as governments, intergovernmental organizations, and the wider Asia Pacific Internet community.
May I add that the APNIC Foundation has worked extensively in gender empowerment. They also have a programme called the Switch programme, which provides a mentorship and capacity-building programme for women engineers and lawyers across the six economies of the Asia Pacific. And as our hashtag goes, action not words, that's what APNIC Foundation does.
We have Arinola, who is online as well. Unfortunately, she couldn't make it to the IGF. But we welcome you online for this session. She is the CEO of Omar Ventures and DigiSphere Limited, and she is based in Nigeria. She is a visionary entrepreneur and a seasoned tech leader with over 29 years of experience in the IT industry, driving digital inclusion, empowerment and innovation, especially in Africa.
We are very proud to also have Ekaterine Imedadze, and I hope I pronounced that correctly, and she is the commissioner of Georgia -- Georgian National Communication Commission, called ComCom, and since March 2021 and she brings 13 years of professional experience in the telecom sector, including leadership roles in international companies.
We have to the left of me, Noha. She is the technical support engineer, high-end storage, Dell Technologies, and a very distinguished engineer in her own right.
Online, we have Lima Omar. She is the research and teaching assistant at the University of Geneva. Thank you very much, Lima, to have come online.
A special thanks to Joyce, who is up, I think, in the middle of the night in Australia. And thank you, Arinola, for joining from Nigeria.
The way we are going to do this session is we are going to have a set of policy-level questions, and we are going to learn from our esteemed panelists. I will be posing the question to three of the panelists. The second question, again, to the next three. And the third one will be open to all.
And in between I will pause because we have two very special people here who is going to help us with the rapporteuring. That's Harisa over here to the left of me, and Gulalai, who is a lecturer at LUMS, that is a renowned university, and she teaches Internet Governance and tech policy.
And Harisa, Associate Information Engineer, Strategic Systems International. Thank you very much for being present here today.
So, I am going to start with a general question, and this is going to be addressed to first Joyce, and then Noha, and then Ekaterine.
The first question is, how can policymakers support initiatives that aim to increase gender diversity and inclusion in network management, as well as operational and infrastructure development roles? For you, Joyce. Can you share why gender is important in the technical and operational roles and in infrastructure development, and how do you see that link between gender, human rights and the technical standards that we produce, also remembering that the technical operational role is a bit of a boys' club. How can we include gender in these roles? Over to you, Joyce.
>> JOYCE CHEN: Thanks very much, Sonal, and thank you so much for the very flattering introduction. I am coming to you in deep from Australia. It's quite late in the night but I am very happy to be with you even if it is from online.
I think three major points that I wanted to bring up to respond to your question, the first one. I think first, of course, is to highlight the importance of supporting access to the Internet. It seems sort of very obvious the Internet ultimately empowers people in many, many ways, so whether it's upskilling, career development, supporting freedom of expression as a basic human right, everything. So, first of all, it's to talk about access. And freedom to access, this thing that we call the Internet.
My second point is that policymakers can do more to promote role models. I think over the years, we have seen more women taking on STEM-related jobs, you know, becoming network engineers or engineers in general, et cetera. But I think the reality remains that many, many women who are in these fields and who have worked many years to be in these fields still find themselves in support roles or service roles. They are not in decision-making roles.
And as you said, Sonal, it's really hard to break into the boys' club, particularly in technical fields. There are lots of reasons for it. Whether it's physical requirements, whether it's, you know, just being plain excluded by colleagues, et cetera, there are many reasons why this is happening.
It's also not always a very welcoming environment, I think, for women, just because it's quite easy, I think, to say, well, okay, there are more women now at the table than before, yes. Thank you. But being inclusive does not necessarily predicate being included. They are quite different, being inclusive versus actually being included.
And I think that the boys' club exists at every level of the hierarchy. My point is we need to do more to promote our role models and what this means also is being confident to step up as a role model. When I question why there are not more women or many woman in executive members such as board members, the most common answer I hear is, well, no woman applied. Nobody nominated themselves for the role. And so they were all male.
So, I think there already exists a problem of, you know, women not wanting to put themselves forward, is the first thing, for various reasons. But also that even if there were such positions, it's very hard for women to take them on board.
My third point, and my last point for now, is that I think to be in policy and in decision-making roles, there needs to be more support for multidisciplinary expertise and skills. When we are in Internet Governance spheres we often talk about multilateralism but I don't think we talk enough about multidisciplinary. Each stakeholder group is not meant to embody only a specific set of skills, so governments don't just govern. The technical community doesn't just tech. And it seems blatantly obvious but sometimes even when we are operating in a multistakeholder environment such as in the IGF, we still tend to pigeonhole ourselves when I think we should aim to reach across the aisles.
Practicing multilateralism requires multidisciplinary skills, expertise, knowledge and going back to your question, Sonal, the same is true that policymakers I think should require initiatives to be multidisciplinary by design. I will stop here and I will leave the time for others to respond as well. Thank you.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Thanks a lot, Joyce, you have given us a lot of points to think about. I think about what you have said, that, you know, what is the difference between inclusion and being included. There is a huge gap. There is a gap in what women can do for themselves, but there is a lot that can be done also to create an enabling environment so that women can thrive for the various challenges that they face.
So, I am going to now turn to Noha on my left. Noha comes from Egypt. And in your country, are there initiatives to encourage and build capacity and help women to build their careers and increase their skills, such as operating skills as the industry is evolving continuously? Over to you.
>> NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY: Thank you, Sonal. And I wanted to echo everything that Joyce said.
So, I thought that we in a very good shape when it comes to gender balance in tech until I was representing my company Dell at a very big tech event, the biggest one in Cairo, it's called Cairo ICT where each tech company has a booth and has representatives. And all the representatives were men. So, I was like shocked why. Because these men, they talk to decisionmakers and companies and make deals with them.
But I guess in Egypt we have many culture barriers where tackling that filter, like, the filtration you mentioned at the beginning of your speech when you said, like, women tend to study humanitarian fields rather than studying tech or STEM fields.
So, yeah, we were told that you are smarter in history rather than math or science. STEM fields are very demanding, so you will not be able to balance a home and work. You will not be able to take managerial levels or tasks. So, yeah, we need more women to represent us, to be our role models.
We tend to, like, be intimidated to talk about our achievements and what we did and to even share our experience with other woman but I guess I work in a corporate and we have initiatives to include more women in managerial levels and even mentor college students to join the STEM fields.
These days, not necessary to study tech, to come from a tech background to work in tech. You can still study at any time of your, like, career, time to and join the tech field. I have seen women from low background who are, like, programmers now and they shifted to other career paths.
So, in Egypt, we have, like, very good governmental initiative called globe -- I'm sorry, digital Egypt generations where, like, they divided the age groups so digital Egypt youth, digital Egypt pioneers and they offer tech courses in different fields for the -- sorry, the different age groups. They also offer mentorship and soft skills courses and they introduce freelancing to the trainees. And they aim to train thousands of citizens from the different age groups. And this contributed in a very good way in the job finding because we have, like, many big tech companies investing in Egypt because I believe we have a very good range of skill sets. So, yeah, it was a very good way to put the different age groups with the needed digital skills. Back to you.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Thank you very much for that, Noha. And I guess in every country, there are initiatives in order to encourage more women to enter the tech force.
And Joyce was talking about role models. I guess you are one in Egypt yourself.
I am going to now move to Ekaterine, and from your perspective on regulatory strategies and advancing connectivity in diverse contexts, what is it that you feel is absolutely critical that we must do.
>> EKATERINE IMEDADZE: Thank you so much. It's a pleasure always to discuss the topics related to gender equality and diversity for everybody in a quite broad context, I think as you have opened this panel. And also I mention very soon we will have time where there will not be need for women specific or diversity specific discussions because it will become normal for everybody to be -- the world to be balanced on that way. To answer your first question, most important, I believe you would agree for policymakers for regulators is ensuring that access to skills that aren't there. So there is no gap in providing digital infrastructure, digital enablers, devices, that there is no gap.
And there is no gap in skills of using those digital services that there should be similar opportunities for all the gender groups or diverse population groups. So, this is first thing that we take care of and in case of ComCom, we are supporting infrastructure project in Georgia which delivers the fiberoptics to different regions of Georgia. And our supporting programme is bringing the literacy to the villages where the Internet will be brought.
The specific focus on top of the general trainings, there is specific gender specific and also for people with disabilities, there are specific trainings provided. It's always needed and you need to pay more -- invest more resources. This is the first layer we need to do.
Another layer, we think it's important is collaboration with different organizations, donor organizations, educational organizations, because if we speak about the equality in the society, it starts from education. So, different memorandums or collaborations with universities, also with high schools. And where you can speak and encourage, speak about telecommunications, digital and tell them how important, now how big the area where they can grow up as an expert and that there are equally opportunities, especially bringing role models, as has well been mentioned.
For example, if I can go and speak about what was the past for me, starting from some technology education and still it was very difficult to get to that -- to break this glass ceiling, as we call, right? Because on the one hand side, in the universities, you can find in Georgia almost 50/50 gender distribution between male and female.
But somehow we see that around 20% on managerial position. Then what happens in between from graduating university why it is so difficult for women to speak about it, that what were the barriers, what were the lessons learned.
And I think that for the second question, I will have more time to speak about the mentorship programmes. And I try to be transparent personally. And especially for women, especially on senior positions, it's a special responsibility to be a role models or speak more about the challenges on your path or on your career path. And this is somehow we need to take this responsibility to be more vocal, more visible and play somewhere mentors, some were mentees changing roles. I think these kind of opportunities are also very important for us.
I would say that there is no one specific solution to this problem, but we need to be act as diverse way as possible. Thank you.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Thank you so much for sharing your experiences from Georgia. And what I took away from what you said was that you have to invest resources and, yes, you require financial resources, but human resources to go out there, to encourage, to talk about personal challenges. And so we have to make it more personal and to encourage women to not only get into STEM, but also to move into more decision-making roles. And absolutely, it's a different way of trying to ensure that women enter the workforce and we have to make it as personal as possible.
So, I'm going to pause here and come to Gulalai. Any comments or questions from the online community?
>> GULALAI KHAN: One question on Maureen asking for advice for completely inexperienced women, if they want to move to network, you know, engineering, what's the advice from all of you for them?
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Okay. Please go ahead, Noha.
>> NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY: Thank you for the question. So, there are many basic courses to start with. They are offered by many big companies, big vendors. I don't want to mention any but you can just Google, like, basic network courses to know what is an IP, what is routing, what is switching. And you can start by studying some certifications so you can add value to your CV and then you can go to the more technical or more deep levels of these. Like networking, there are many fields inside, so but you need to start with the basics first.
>> GULALAI KHAN: A comment from the fact that when women join, for example, when they become part of infrastructural projects, sometimes the work at odd hours is also an issue and that is a bad for a lot of women. A lot of women engineers, they are not able to, you know, leave, like stay there at night. And even if they want to stay at night, the men on the field will tell them, it's better you don't stay there.
So, anybody who has had that sort of an experience and --
>> SONAL ZAVERI: I think Joyce has her hand up.
>> GULALAI KHAN: Yeah.
>> JOYCE CHEN: Thanks very much for the question, Maureen. That's a great question. And just to add on to what Noha said, each of the Internet organizations, so whether it's APNIC, where I come from or ICANN or the Internet Society, each of us all have different very basic online courses that you can take to do with networking or to do with DNS, or the Domain Name System, to do with Internet Governance. There's a lot of very rich resources you can tap on, all for free. You just need to sign up into our portals and basically you can do the course online. It's not a big barrier. They are all free so you do it in your own time.
There are also certain workshops and training courses that each of our organizations regularly conduct. And oftentimes we also go to the countries themselves to train the local community. So, there's a lot of capacity-building that is happening, especially when it comes to networking and basics for networking and networking 101, that sort of thing.
And so I think as Noha was saying, you start from the basics. There are a lot of free materials out there. And when you are in these courses, when you are in these capacity-building initiatives, try your best to get to know the network so, you know, make friends with your fellows who are there, make friends with the mentors who are there. And that's how you build, basically, your own human network. It's not just about learning the skills or learning the knowledge and applying it. But it's also really making those human connections, because that's where it really helps your career to grow.
I also wanted to touch on the point that Sonal was saying, which is that especially, I think, in the engineering field and the network engineering space, the network operators very often there are a lot of men, when the men socialize, they have a very specific way of socializing. And sometimes it may not be so friendly for women to participate. And that was one of the reasons that I said that, you know, you can have a setup where it is inclusive so, yes, there are women around. But it doesn't mean that the women are being included. Because sometimes it really can be quite hard for us to be included, especially in social events, especially when we are trying to network.
I would say the best way is to try and change cultural norms. Is it really necessary, for example, if we are going out social -- on a social event that everybody has to be heavily drinking? That sort of thing happens a lot when it is an all-men kind of social event. And it might not be a very safe space for women.
And so I think in this session when we are talking about how to recreate a welcoming or inclusive environment for women, we also have to talk about safety, talk about personal security. I think these are things that people take for granted. They just do what they have always done. It's a very generational habit.
I think we can change that. You know, make it a more welcoming and safe environment for women to also operate in.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Thank you for that, Joyce. I am sorry, I have my back to the audience. But I can take one question approximate if there's anybody from the audience, if you could put your hand up and I will ask my colleagues to help with.
>> PARTICIPANT: Thank you. Hello, good evening. My name is Articula (?). My name is Articula. I come here from (?) as Internet become the powerful tools for empowering women globally and providing them different opportunities so as the current government in Iran day by day -- and (muffled audio) from working in the organization. Is there any special programme from APNIC foundation or any other organization where if a woman can learn from Internet? Thank you.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Thank you for that suggestion. We have a programme called digital link and we had a session at 11:30 today and we also have a Switch programme. Thank you for that interjection.
I'm going to move now to the second question. It's also a policy-level question. But I want to go a little bit deeper in how do we address the gender gap in tech-related fields? So, we are becoming a little more specific, such as cybersecurity and how do we encourage more women to pursue careers in that field? Should you have incentives? How do we get them to sustain their education, how do we address some of their barriers?
I'm going to turn to Amrita, and from your experience, Amrita, what is it -- what sort of policies do we need for education, capacity development, in the industry in terms of employment, policy issues at the macro level, local level? Can you share anything from India?
>> AMRITA CHOUDHURY: Thanks. I hope I'm audible now to begin with, I would say that when policies are being made in government, in business, women should be there in the table. That's the first thing. It should not be someone else who is making it on your behalf. That patronizing attitude should not be there, especially if you want to make it work.
For example, we have been talking about making it more welcoming for women to join and be there and grow up. What about women who had to take, you know, a leave, go back for two, three years and come back. Is industry or government welcoming them? Do they get the similar kind of jobs which they left and went. They don't. They are left behind.
The question which comes is why do women not go up. Sometimes they have to sacrifice for their families but industries or governments are not so welcome. So do we have such processes or, I would say areas where they can be upskilled and taken at the same level. Because normally if you go to industry and what you hear informally, obviously, officially they can says they went back earlier, it's three years, they have lost a lot of time. Whereas their colleagues move much up and then they can't do that.
So, what kind of, you know, processes are we having? Is it welcoming? If that's welcoming, then it would encourage many more women who have, perhaps, joined those industries to move up, because they see some opportunity. You know, that's very important.
If I look at countries and I would only comment upon India, there are various schemes. If you look at the papers, there are various schemes, it starts with STEM skills encouraging, at the school level, even in rural areas, promoting young girls in STEM skills, upgrading their skills at the next level. You also have programmes for women scientists in exploratory. You have skills development, entrepreneurship, you have banks giving loans to women to start businesses because that's also empowerment. It could be using tech-related things. You have startups coming up where women are incentivized. What are the challenges that comes? You may have schemes, but how can you scale them up or make them work is something, perhaps, we need to do a bit more rethinking how they work, how they do not work. I think that is something which is -- I feel it's important.
The other question which was being discussed, you know, it was posted in the group was, I think, the question which was posed is, she is new, she wants to become more, you know, experienced in this thing, how to leverage the network. I think women can have to help other women, at least some who have risen or have known because if you kind of help each other, the entire community gets uplifted and I think many of them do mentorships informally also help. Networks help, you can use tools like LinkedIn, et cetera, which I commented to help.
And I think if you can come to know of best practices of some policies with some countries or, you know, have kind of implemented, sharing it within community in different countries helps to say -- to go to country authorities and say, this is the kind of thing. It not criticizing, but you are saying this could be made better.
And I think companies also have to stop the lip service and move ahead. We say we want to encourage women, but in the business, if the woman wants to go in for maternity leave for six months, ask their bosses, what faces they make, at least in South Asia.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Thanks, Amrita for talking the reality most women face in their biologically roles for their families. And I think women have the power to empower others. That's vital.
I want to turn to Lima. And Lima, you can speak a great deal about conservative countries, and how would you apply basic rights of women in such countries? For example, we talk about education, we talk about mobility. What does it mean when we speak these words of empowerment, responsibility of the international community to address these issues? What comes to your mind? Over to you, Lima.
>> LIMA MADOMI: Thank you, Sonal.
Listening to all of the womens in this panel talking about their countries and the initiatives that they are having in terms of empowering women and in terms of helping them to develop more engineering field makes me happy, really makes me happy, but at the same time it makes me sad to think about the womens in my country who does not even have the basic rights to pursue their education and to finish school. After six standards they have to stay at home and they are not allowed to even pursue their further education.
So, when I think about empowerment for women, for me as a woman coming from a very conservative country, it is about until when I could access certain education or certain opportunities that are available or from a perspective of an Afghan woman, what type of opportunities are available for us and when.
It's more about -- for us, it's more about access, because we don't have at the first place access, and after access, I think for us it will come to be empowerment, because we don't even have the basic rights that a lot of women in the world might have, the womans from certain developing countries, they have these rights much easier compared to womans from Afghanistan, for example.
I heard that in Georgia the gender balance in universities are almost 50/50. That's wonderful. That's like one of the best things I think I have heard for very long time in terms of gender equality.
But then I come back to Afghanistan and then I think about all of these things where it doesn't even exist.
So, when we are talking about all of these things, I think for Afghan woman, it will be that -- that Amrita mentioned that not a lot of women in certain parts of the world does not have the same right. And even within Afghanistan, if we compare rural areas with urban areas it's still very different. The conservative culture of rural areas are much more severe or much more stronger compared to the urban areas.
For example, I grew up in a city, in an urban area, and I had much more access toward education, toward better opportunities compared to a woman that was from the same country and coming from a village. She might not even know there are certain alias in Afghanistan that they are not even aware that Internet exists or if Internet is something. A lot of women doesn't even know how to use phone or make a call.
So, when I think about all of these things, it's, like, it's not the same for all countries. In some countries, for example, if we think about developed world, it's in a way, it's their -- they consider it, like, advice and they take it as a right, and I'm so for it. But for us, we don't even have that right to reach to the level of access so that then we could talk about empowerment.
So, that's -- I think there's a lot when I talk about these things about Afghanistan and countries like Afghanistan. But I think I will leave it at this and back to you, Sonal.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Thank you, Lima. And what you have mentioned is that we have to be contextual. It's not the same everywhere. It’s not the same in each country also.
And you mentioned something very important, is that it's not that women can't do it. Sometimes the environment is such that somebody is Zooming, somebody is making the decision that you cannot achieve in these STEM fields, let alone education. So it's somebody's decision, most male deciding what 50% of the population can or cannot do.
So I'm now going to turn to Arinola and thank you for your patience being online.
Arinola, you have a lot of experience working with youth and women. And so how are we going to address the gender gap in tech-related fields? What's been your experience and what are some of the lessons that we can learn? Over to you.
>> ARINOLA AKINYEMI: Okay. Thank you, Sonal. Hi, everyone. Of course you are having a good time at the IGF. It's an interesting question for me because having worked in the STEM region, personally I'm an engineer by profession so I have been in the STEM industry.
From my own personal experience, it started at a very tender age for me personally, I was (?) like Lima was saying to have grown up in an urban area and I had what you call the support from home. My dad told me before I turned -- while I was a toddler, and he said, I think there was something coming up and I as Africans generally you have the tradition where you believe that, okay, this is a female thing, this is a male thing. That cultural thing.
And he called me and he said, don't you ever tell yourself that again. You can be whatever you want to be and you can do whatever you want to do. And that is where self-confidence, self-belief comes in for me and that is meant to be applicable to all women. Believing that we can do it. We have got the ability and we have got the potential. And then we can move on. And that helped me in my daily life. And it helped me in my career, in my choice of career also, and I ended up starting computer electronics engineering at the university.
And interestingly, the percentage from Georgia is amazing really, because at the time I was getting into the university in my class, we were 31, it was 30 male and one female and (?) it was 20 male and one female. So that is something we need to get over, that gender negative stereotyping, I cannot do it. We need to help ourselves and that's the best way to empower ourselves as women and that's the way we can do it.
And then another thing we could also look at is mentorship. We cannot take that away. Those of us who have been, you know -- or, you know, opportune to come out, to find ourselves in the position maybe successful in your business as a techy, go back and give back to the system or somebody. Let that person know that, okay, there is support, there is guidance, this is the way to go. You can do it. And then we will see ourselves making it forth.
Also, there's also the lead for youth, because oftentimes, in my experience, having worked with youth and women, I have discovered that financial literacy and planning is also a major challenge that we have. Oftentimes we cannot save, we don't have the right budgeting skills, we do not do the right investment. So these are areas where -- wherein we need to help also as successful ones to mentor and to show this direction.
Because once you can do most of those things, you will find yourselves excelling in this and then you find the gap being bridged. Because the moment you have financial literacy and then you have the planning skills, the issue of not being involved will not be there.
Also, you can also go into time management and prioritization. When you look at it as women, we have roles that are meant for us. We take care of the kids. We take care. Home. And then how do you balance these two together.
So, the ability to be able to balance is where there is successful of bridging that gap will come in, because, okay, an example will be as a techy for the male, they can go to work and come back at about 12:00, 1:00, midnight, nobody says anything. But as a woman, you find it difficult to do that because you think of the kids. So, how do you balance this?
This is where policies needs to be made by the government that will encourage the women to be able to balance, they probably work from home and then enjoy equal opportunity as a male counterpart will, equity not equality now but equity because there's a lot of difference between equality and equity. For me, I believe in equity rather than equality because when you say equality means I would still be at a disadvantage.
But when you say equity, that means you're looking at where the disadvantage is currently for me, which is considering that I have a family life that I have to work with and then the government should be able to enact laws that will make it possible for me to still do the same thing without necessarily jeopardizing my family life.
For us in Nigeria, especially in Africa, ICT alliance currently where I see it as the vice-chair for West Africa with a vision of the promise of the digital age for Africa. Interestingly, it's almost an all-female leadership and that is where we are coming up with ideas for women to be able to take roles where policy decisions are being made because our absence has contributed greatly to most of those laws being enacted without our inputs into them.
Additionally, part of the steps that could be taken to mitigate this or to bridge this gap would also be, you know, addressing discrimination and harassment. A lot of us have experienced it, while it might not be intentional, it could be an unintended one but oftentimes we experience it where people make mockery of you and you have to dress like a male to fit in in the techy world and all of that.
But most importantly, in my experience, I think advocacy and awareness is very key to the success of bridging the gap. We need to empower and awaken the consciousness of the women to know the importance of Internet access, how the Internet can empower them, and then how being in the STEM field is a possibility.
And then when we enact -- when we advocate for these policies and initiatives like currently in Nigeria we have some initiatives that are going on, and the success rate is quite interesting.
There's the women in tech in Nigeria where we offer mentorship programme, you know, to a female and experienced professionals, we provide them -- the experienced professionals provide guidance as a mentoring programme. And currently we have 80% of the mentees have reported improvement in their career prospects. That is the strength of mentoring. And about 70%, we have 70% increase in confidence and self-esteem.
So those are the things we should be looking at. And I believe when we continue to do these things and working on these policies, we will eventually get to where we will see we not be talking about equality but we will be feeling like it's a norm. Thank you.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Thank you. Thank you very much. Women should be at the decision making, women should be there when policies are made for them. That point was also made by Amrita. And you talked about many of the issues that we have been discussing here today, about social norms, cultural norms and I knew Gulalai mentioned one of the problems if you are working late in infrastructure, what can you do? I'm sure there's a lot you can do but one has to put one's head to it, think about it as important and address some of the sociocultural norms. You can shatter the glass ceiling.
I'm going to pause again, and if there are any questions, this time I'm going to ask from the audience behind me. All right. Thank you. Please.
>> PARTICIPANT: Am I audible? Okay. Good. Thank you.
There are very interconnected discussions about women empowerment, especially what Amrita mentioned and what Lima said about women in Afghanistan, and you also pointed that it should be contextualized. But now, like, that question is, as Amrita said, women should be there to decide in terms of policymaking regulations, these things.
As you also said that it depends on the cultures and the societies. So, how it's going to happen, especially for white woman who are not allowed to decide for themselves. That is the biggest question.
And the second thing I'm going to say is the -- it's another question, but share of my idea that empowerment of women starts within women, especially in associations like ours, I have experienced living in Pakistan as a refugee back in the '90s and also living in Afghanistan which is my own country and seeing the cultural of India by visiting as well as by watching their Bollywood modifies, so that women, most of the women, they don't believe in themselves, that they are similar to women, I mean as strong as women, as capable as women and especially, for example, I would be giving a very stupid example, that when they want a child, so the first person who wants a son is the mother herself. So, the woman empowerment starts before a woman is born. So, if mothers believe that they are stronger and if this he got a daughter, the daughter would not be the same as their sons, then I think the woman empowerment will start from there. Thank you very much.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Thank you for that comment.
We have got two hands up. Shall I come to Lima? Would you like to comment?
>> LIMA MADOMI: Yes. Thank you, Sonal. The thing I wanted to mention was about the youth comment that he mentioned. It was about the fact that when a woman is pregnant and she is having a child, she is the first one that wants a son. I think in here it's the societal norms that making the woman, sort of, forced to want that. Because even coming from Afghanistan myself, in our society, it is a very big thing if a woman gave birth to a son because she is then like valued much more and much larger compared to if she gave birth to daughter, for example.
So, that -- in that sense, it's not the woman who decide. It's the community and the society that in a way decide for her. And she has no other option to survive.
It's a way of survival for her in and in a way of protection of her child because she wants her child to be protected and she wants -- she doesn't want a daughter to have the same sort of future she had. That's why she want a son. Not because she doesn't like a daughter but because it's the society, it's the community that's forcing her to come back.
And coming back to the women empowering women I think it's a very important point. Mentorship from women and community, women-led communities and women, the communities that are made by woman for woman, the mentorship programmes that are from womans for womans, these are very important for the empowerment of women and for development of woman in any field, but especially in technology and STEM.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Thank you, Lima, that was very passionate and coming from the heart.
Joyce, you had your hand up but may I request you to keep it to one minute because we still have one question to go through. Thank you.
>> JOYCE CHEN: Thanks very much and thank you for the question. I come from a very, sort of, more traditional patriarchal kind of family as well and these are all lived experience. I genuinely believe there are not many women out there, even in that room who have not come from such a background.
I think it's partly a generational problem. It's also partly that progress is just very slow. And I would say from personal experience that one of the ways to counter cultural bias or discrimination is honestly to just fight through it. It's a lot of fighting. It's very tiring. It's a lot of suffering as well.
But I think that -- I think as Lima said before, education is such an important thing because education enriches the mind. And when you know that there's a bigger world out there, that is something to fight for that is bigger than yourself and bigger than your personal circumstance.
And I think coming back to Internet Governance, that is also the beauty of the Internet. I mean, we talk a lot about the problems that come with the Internet and a lot of Internet evils that are happening, and no doubt.
But I think also we need to appreciate the beauty of which the Internet is able to broaden people's lives and experiences, so live and learn things that are beyond your physical, you know, circumstance.
And that's one way I think for women to be able to break free and to join that fight.
I have a comment that came after Lima, I think you were talking about experience in developing countries and how it is so difficult, even to have basic fundamental rights.
I wanted to follow on to say that, unfortunately, even in the developed countries, what we used to think were fundamental women's rights are very quickly getting eroded as well. So, it is a fight that we keep fighting. And we can't take for granted that the rights that have been given to us will always be there for us and we have to keep fighting for it. And I think that is the reality. Sorry, Sonal, I think I took more than a minute.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: This is something that's so personal to us, that we cannot not respond and I think Amrita also wants to have a quick word.
>> AMRITA CHOUDHURY: Thank you and I will take it from the question and I flip it off. In a repressed society where women have zero rights for centuries, she is not allowed to think. How do you think that she will suddenly rise and come out? It's very difficult.
I would flip it. What are the men in that house doing to help her? Obviously, Sonal, I think yesterday or day before had shared that, you know, the community can work, work with others in that society, really just people trying to get in a bit of education, et cetera to move it. But I think it is not just the woman's duty to one day rise, shine, think I can make it because she will be repressed in those kind of places. Some rise, millions just perish, but I think it's the responsibility also of the family. And especially men. That's why, you know, having many men in the room helps, because it's just not a woman's issue, it's everyone's issue.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Thank you for that. It is everyone's issue. And gender is not just about women. It's about men and women and who holds the power. And we have to recognize that and be very forthright about, you know, who is going to help whom, not just women, but men have to also take their share and acknowledge and step up.
I do want to talk and I'm going to come to the online community a bit later because I do want to get through the third question and then we will open it up.
This is for everybody. But I want to look at it a bit way forward. So, what sort of government policies or industry partnerships do you think that we need to have network leadership opportunities for professional women in the tech sector? And I'd like you to talk about, say, three main topics, three main ideas that you think from your position, you think we have to do as we move forward.
I'm going to ask Ekaterine first, and I know she has been wanting to share some of her experiences.
>> EKATERINE IMEDADZE: Thank you so much. Actually, also this, I think -- I think that today's discussion is also, I think, something is -- with my headset. But if you can hear me, that's okay. Remove. Okay. Now it's better.
So, today's discussion is also part of what we, I think, we need to do and we need to do more, because IGF is a global forum. And having -- paying more and more attention to the topics that are discussed now is becoming -- is still, it is we need to retain as a very important agenda point on the global forums in the technology, in the world of technology.
So, if we speak about the mentorship, I think that ladies have mentioned it, it's absolutely vital because role modeling and speaking about personal experiences, personal challenges, it's only possible through this very intimate relationship that is possible mentorship cycle, because in the technological trainings, for example, you can gain some very good technical expertise, but I personally, I think that it has been three cycles with ITU, Network of Women, I am trying to be a mentor on different tracks, like policy tracks, cyber track, and first it has started with the European region but also there is an opportunity to work with women in different geographic areas. It's tremendous experience. And you do not always feel like you are a mentor. You learn a lot as a mentee, as a female, about the culture, about the solutions.
So, I that I for international organizations have this mandate, I think. And state and policies, state has very, the best situated to collaborate with international organizations and promote women in their organization to be part of this mentorship cycle.
I have heard from different women that it's even sometimes limited at workplaces to be part of some mentorship cycle. I think we also on the senior positions, male and female are responsible given the opportunity to the younger women being mentees in this type of platforms, because there are several very important platforms available. I mentioning in ITU there are different international organizations like GISET, and I don't want to give you more names because there are a lot and lot coming more and more platforms.
As think what as policymakers and employees at our workplaces and as managers and leaders, we need to take care of people who want to grow, who want to take part of this kind of opportunities and you have mentioned also key takeaways for way forward. I think three main topics, maybe not everything is in our power to change, but first as citizens we need to fight for the equal rights in workplaces, changing the laws and policies and recommendations so as citizens to fight for it to have this child care, to have flexible hours for women. This is something still a challenge in my country where, for example, educational level it's available, but not at the workplace level, the flexible hours for women, child care and this kind of opportunities.
Also, it's very important on the educational level, I mean, from kindergartens, in families, in houses and our fathers and brothers and friend, male friends, they play crucial role to give us some kind of these supports and to grow up your child or support your sister in this career path.
I think those are the most important takeaways, way forward. Thank you.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Thank you very much. Absolutely, very, very important points that you said. It talks about personal. It also talks about what states can do. It acknowledges that women have challenges and you need to have policies to address that, such as tracker, and you also mentioned very importantly what do international forums such as this, what are they going to do? How are they going to connect countries to be able to share among each other their experiences and to put this as a very important point on the agenda. I think far more can be done.
I'm going to now turn to Noha.
>> NOHA ASHRAF ABDEL BAKY: Thank you, Sonal. So, I believe the government role here is crucial. First things first. The law need to ensure the safety of women in the workplace and her right to report any gender-based violence in her workplace. Also her right to take a career break, take a child care break or maternity leave, and also her right to return back to work.
And it's also crucial for the governments to partner with the industry and tech companies to provide women with the needed additional skills to join, the ability to offer mentorship opportunities or internships, and also to push or force for diversity and inclusion in these companies as a KPI.
And last thing, I guess, this partnership between government and industry needs to promote more the remote jobs and flexible environments so women can feel more comfortable when they choose tech as their career path. Thank you.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Thank you very much. And thank you for thanking that you need to have KPIs. Make people accountable, right? Not just talk, but walk the talk.
I'm going to go online. Three takeaways or a couple of important points that you would like to say. May I go to Joyce.
>> JOYCE CHEN: Thanks very much, Sonal. And I think I just before we close also want to say how much I enjoyed this session honestly, and I really enjoy the candor I think that all of us on this panel has shown in this session.
I think one thing that policymakers can consider to do is think about diversity by design. So, we often hear the phrase security by design and et cetera, you know, spinoffs of this phrase. So why not have diversity by design?
And I have a few examples. So, the APNIC fellowship, for example, is mandated that we have 50% gender parity in the programme for APNIC fellows. We have the Asia Pacific Internet Governance academy, which is another -- you know, is one of those school of Internet Governance that also has the same, by design it has a gender parity mandatory, that 50% of the participants in this academy who want to learn about Internet Governance have to be split gender.
So, I can see that there is a trend now in programmes to, basically, build this in already when they are recruiting for fellows, when they are recruiting for participants and I think there are many arenas that are already tracking and monitoring that there is equal participation from women.
So, we can definitely do more in this area. Whether or not we are going to pass a law to do this, I don't think we need to, but I certainly think it's a kind of best practice that we can try and adopt, just by being conscious about the, sort of, diversity that we are tracking. Thanks very much.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Thank you, Joyce. I like that diversity by design and some of the initiatives that are already in place to ensure that that happens.
May go to Arinola, a couple of takeaways, way forward?
>> ARINOLA AKINYEMI: Thank you. For me, coming from the business or the industry perspective as a businesswoman, I would advise like we do, what I do is we have what you call the unconscious bias training that is provided for all employees so that way, because it's only natural, oh, she is a girl so why should I want to work with her? We do that so it gets you to let go of that and build unconsciousness -- or conscious belief exam then you will be able to work together freely in a more amenable environment.
The government is very keen to this. The government makes the policy while the industry drives the economy. Now the industry employs. So if the synergy between the government and the industry is solid, you will find out that the government will probably provide incentives to campaigns like make tax incentives for employing female in tech. And then in -- like for me in the industry currently we have some ongoing researches that I encourage women in tech to come on board and be the lead researcher as well as the male, under them so that it makes it looks very interesting.
And something that we try to compare notes, those, of course, in the industry to be able to work together so that we can continue to build this clearer path for women.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Thank you for that, Arinola, practical, we need to incentivize and that's a partnership between government policy as well as industry. Absolutely critical to do so. So, thank you for that.
May I move to Lima?
>> LIMA MADOMI: Yes. Thank you. I think one of the most important things will be that there are multiple programmes for women, but the sexist matrix of these programmes are not as much evaluated and some of these programmes are having certain problems in terms of developing them and in terms of accessibility and other areas.
So, it's very important to evaluate these programmes and understand some of the problems that these programmes might have and how to address those problems. So, that will be one of the very important things.
And I think the other important thing will be the flexible work policies. So opportunities for women in terms of working from home or parent leaves or some of these opportunities for women so that they could work, but also have the possibility of taking care of their families and staying with their children if needed. So, that could be also very important and it could encourage women in terms of working more and having more possibilities to be in STEM and these areas.
Also one of the other important things, since being from this technology background and working in this industry, I think sometimes it's very important to give some of the opportunity -- to give some specific opportunities for women because currently where I work, the number of women in comparison to men are, like, it's much lesser. And even though I work at Geneva University and it's in Switzerland, it's one of the universities that are promoting this thing to have more women. But the reason that we are not having a lot of women in STEM or in technology in general, especially in -- even where I work is because there isn't a lot of flexibility offered for women and they are not well supported in a way so they work but when we actually gave opinions, they are not taken very seriously.
So, to have possibility to be considered equal or to have some sort of policies to give those opinions and be considered, I think that will be very important. Thank you.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Thank you so much, Lima. You mentioned something very, very important. And that is that there has to be a system change. You can't just expect women to -- you know, yes, of course, you have to empower women. But you need a system change and consider all of this. And thank you so much for bringing up the evaluation point of view. I am an evaluator, so it was music to my ears to hear you say that. We need to know what works, what doesn't work and that's the only way we can improve and go forward.
I'm going to come now to Amrita.
>> AMRITA CHOUDHURY: Thank you. So, there could be many things at a macro level where we do not have so much of a hold, like, for example, trying to ensure our regulators, governments have women on board when they are discussing policies related to women or even commenting on it. But those are high-level things.
Some actionable things and APNIC foundation making me for this, let me put it in their head is one is, there are opportunities available, for example, Joyce was talking about the APNIC Foundation, APNIC's fellowship opportunities, et cetera or others also give opportunities. Why not create a repository where all these opportunities are listed and we can all guide them to that and possibly APNIC Foundation could lead on it. They may kill me now for this.
Similarly, there are initiatives which are done. You were mentioning the Swiss initiative. Could the results or the impact those made on getting more women in tech and how it helped the economies be published which can be taken as case studies shared elsewhere so that that can be an encouragement for governments. Because when they are evaluating things, results help.
The other thing is, you know, perhaps we are discussing a lot of things. There could be a call for action which comes where we can draft something, you know, even a five points, we draft simple points and APNIC foundation could help if they are in various countries and from that we take it to our respective countries and circulate it as a call for action. It doesn't have to be very heavy handed. It could be just five simple points. That this is what we demand.
I don't know.
(Off microphone)
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Thank you very much for that. I think very, very practical action points, a call for action. In fact, even IGFs could do that, right, have gender stream which says these are -- this is what we must do. I think it has to be at that high-level advocacy as well as at the local level, whatever we can do.
>> GULALAI KHAN: And Sonal, there’s a comment, probably we can ask the panelists on how to bring women to the technical community, for example you talked about the IGF and the ITU one so any suggestions on how they can be a part of it?
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Who would like to take that? Amrita?
>> AMRITA CHOUDHURY: It was statement on how to bring women in tech communities about panelists and what are the key steps. I think that's what we discussed. ITU has various initiatives for women in tech. That is why I said if there could be a repository where things could be linked, for example, ITU so doing but in one site. It is helpful for newcomers. It is difficult for people to navigate and make it easier. Once a woman find a path they can do whatever they want. And IGF had a gender session earlier, gender and access, I was one of the co-moderators. Unfortunately it was doing very well but then from the community we needed volunteers for one year and there were no volunteers available. That's the hard reality. We talk about gender, we talk about many things but when it comes to rolling up the sleeves and working, it didn't work.
Bring mainstream gender into all the discussions.
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Practical issues over there.
Do we have any further comments online?
Anybody from the audience? I'm sorry, I'm just turning behind. But if there's some comment, something that you want to question, anything from them.
Okay. Then maybe we can close this session. I think one of the very important points to take away is that there is a common thread in the stories that we have heard and in the experiences that we have learned from different continents and they have come from Europe, come Africa, come from Australia, they have come from Asia and a number of them was talking about the personal, the mentorship, the power to empower, the role models.
But it also talked about, we need policies that address the challenges that women face. And so the concept that Arinola, thank you so much for bringing that up, was about equality or equity. So when we talk about equality, gender equality, what does that mean? It's formal equality. We assume that men and women are equal, but they are not, and we know it.
So, we have to speak about equity as the roadmap in order to achieve that equality ,and that roadmap means we have to break the barriers. We have to look at the challenges. And we have to incentivize, whether we talk in the industry, whether we talk about at the policy level, whether we talk at international spaces, local spaces and forums, we need to have those platforms where we continually advocate the personal, as well as the systemic changes that have to come.
We cannot be the only ones shouting aloud for this change. We need everybody in the room to do so. And so we need men as allies, as believing that having women on board is good for them and for us and for society as a whole.
And I really loved that the thought that the Internet opens up a whole new world for women. And when you think about the restricted lives that women lead, you know, the problems of mobility, you know, restrictions and so many cultural norms that they have to face, the Internet is really a wonderful world to experience, to learn, and to grow and to be something more than where you are located, anywhere in the world, in an urban area, in a rural area, in the remotest places of all, no matter who you are. There's such a great promise that is there in the Internet world.
So, with that, I'd like to thank all my speakers, the most wonderful role models. Every one of you have broken the glass ceiling. Thank you so much. Thank you so much to Gulalai. Thank you so much to Harisa of being present here today and helping us along. Thank you very much.
(Applause)
>> SONAL ZAVERI: Please don't go away. We are going to take a photograph. Stay online. Keep the videos on.