Technology shapes the world around us. It is used to provide education, services and jobs. Both men and women use digital technologies and must be involved in building our digital future.

Research shows that more diverse teams lead to better decision-making and more innovative products and services, which are good for company performance, business and economic progress.

In addition, Europe's digital future includes big data, robotics, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and the Internet of Things. There is currently a shortage of around one million digital professionals. Hiring more women will help meet Europe's growing demand for digital experts.

Women are underrepresented in the digital economy:

- 53% of companies trying to hire ICT specialists report difficulties in finding qualified people
- only one in three science technology and mathematics (STEM) graduates is a woman
- only 17% – 1 in 6 – of ICT experts in the EU are women.
Women working in ICT earn almost 20 percent less than men.
- only 19% of European ICT entrepreneurs are women
93% of capital invested in European companies this year went to all-male founding teams (data downloaded from: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/hr/library/women-digital)

Women in IT (photo from: https://evalart.com/en/blog/las-mujeres-en-tecnologia-e-informatica-10-pioneras/)

The reasons for the lower number of women in the IT sector are many and varied, but they can be divided into several key areas:

- social norms and culture - we live in a society that believes that women should devote themselves to family and household chores, that women do not need to achieve their goals through career and business success. Social norms are very strict and limited when it comes to the economic representation and independence of women. The environment does not support the development of women in business nor does it treat them equally with men, which directly affects the possibility of success and the representation of women in the IT sector. By influencing society, through examples and experience, significant support can be given to the empowerment of women.
- education - although education is equally accessible to everyone, we are witnessing that significantly fewer women enroll in the technical faculty. From childhood, girls are directed towards other professions and occupations (social sciences, languages, etc.). Viewing IT only through programming and engineering jobs is another obstacle for greater representation of women in this industry. Fortunately, trends in enrollment and interest in technical colleges are changing in favor of women. Education of parents, teachers and children themselves about technological changes, occupations and skills that are in demand can influence change.
- stereotypes and prejudices - IT is a male profession, men are better engineers, have more passion for technology, deserve more salary, are better at running a business and making decisions, people who deal with IT are antisocial and unsociable... All these prejudices affect how the IT world is viewed. With the availability of information about jobs, challenges, working environment in IT companies, we can break the above stereotypes.
- personal ambitions and desires - personal ambitions and desires of women when it comes to their profession and career. It is not uncommon for women to consciously choose family as their priority and to have no ambition to climb the career ladder. This is a situation where career development solely depends on how many women want to fight and progress. The same thing is with the profession they choose. It is quite normal that women sometimes choose non-technical professions because they really have no desire to deal exclusively with programming work. On the other hand, they still have the possibility of participating in the IT sector through various tasks that exist in IT companies: marketing, sales, business development, strategy, human resources, communication, public relations.

It is very interesting that at the very beginnings of programming, mostly women did this work. You can see how the change happened in this short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNdc5ZCuhjQ