Women in Tech: Opportunities to Enter, Remain and Thrive in the Technology World

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A panel discussion consisting of females who are at different points in their career paths discussing how the opportunities to enter, remain and thrive in the technology world. The following panel topics will be addressed:

• Women in (business) & technology acting as role models for other women – The establishment of role models is an integral stepping stone in order to start seeing more women occupying technology related roles.
• Women in tech changing the emerging tech world - Embracing emerging technology as an enabler and tool to forward careers.
• Female technology students – Insight on how the number of female tech students have changed over the years and how many of these students go on to have a technology related career. 

Who Should Attend?

Anyone with an interest in the subject, particularly girls and females who are interested in the ICT field as a profession. 

Session Outline

Despite the increasing impact of technology on our daily lives, less than a third of the world’s technical workforce are women. The gender gap is preventing women from playing their full role in shaping the future of our society or in realising the powerful potential for technology to make the world a better place.

Women in (business) & technology acting as role models for other women.

Science and technology hold the promise of a better working world for all of us. However, less than a third of the world’s technical workforce are women. This means that bias is being embedded into our future, hampering us from harnessing the full potential of comprehensively beneficial technology. The establishment of role models is an integral stepping stone in order to start seeing more women occupying technology related roles. This would give us the right push to continue to aspire to elevate ourselves into those very positions our ‘role models’ are in. As Marian Wright Edelman correctly said “you can’t be what you can’t see”. By educating women and girls, incubating their leadership potential, and innovating new ways to empower a diverse technical workforce, we can support the closing of the gender gap in technology and the creation of an environment where everyone is able to become an architect of the transformative age.

Women in tech changing the emerging tech world

At the ‘EY and Henley: Women in Emerging Technology Immersion Course’, a delegates’ survey found that 100% of respondents were excited by emerging technology and wanted to learn more about it, whilst 89% strongly agreed that it could provide new opportunities for career advancement and development. However, there is another story that we collectively need to understand if this optimism is to be realized consistently. Women and men need to be keenly aware of this, and take conscious action in order for women to progress in their careers. Women need to embrace emerging technology as an enabler and a tool in their own branding, and adjust their skillsets to move forward in their careers and not be left behind.

Female technology students

In two thirds of the EU Member States, the majority of persons employed in science and technology were women, the highest share being in Lithuania and Latvia, with 63.7% and 62.9% respectively. Austria, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, Italy and Malta were the only countries with a share of less than 50%, ranging from 49.9% to 45.2%. Through this topic we are going to discuss how the number of female students enrolled in technology related courses has changed over the years and how many of these students go on to have a technology related career after completing their studies.

The panel will consist of four international female professionals who are at different points in their career paths discussing the opportunities to enter, remain and thrive in the technology world, including managing work-life balance, whilst also referring to emerging technologies and how these will continue shaping the future of work.

Objectives and Learning Outcomes

• Increased awareness of different technology career paths
• Understand the importance of having female role models
• Introduction to emerging technologies and their implementation to solve issues
• Better understanding of how emerging tech can lead to career advancement
• Understand how the number of female tech students evolved over time
• Understand the barriers to having a technology related career

Registration fee

This is a free event.

Speakers 

Karen Massa - Manager, Business and Technology Risk Consulting

Karen is a Manager working in the Malta office who joined Ernst & Young in 2014. Karen is a Certified Information Systems Auditor and is in the process of obtaining the Certified Information Systems Manager certification. Karen has acquired certifications relating to ISO 27001, specifically the Lead Auditor Certification, as well as certifications relating to GDPR. Karen has spent a number of months seconded in the UK to participate in engagements relating to cybersecurity and anti-money laundering. Karen has delivered various training sessions on Information Security to participants hailing from different sectors as well as internal participants. Training also covered anti-bribery and corruption in collaboration with other EY colleagues.

Selma Turki - Executive Director and Cognitive Solution Leader at EY EMEIA

Selma has over 20 years of IT Multi-Industry experiences, a strong EMEIA market insight with experiences and knowledge of major global enterprises and the necessary business acumen to guide her customers towards successful digitalization by leveraging key Intelligent Automation solutions. Selma has been a guest keynote speaker in several global and regional events on AI and Intelligent Automation as well as Women Empowerment through Emerging Technology. She also took part in several initiatives for youth and migrants. She has a vested interest in women empowerment, coaching, mentoring internally as well as externally and have been a champion of cultural diversity for several years. She built and, led jointly with Henley Business school, a Women in Emerging Technology Program, that has won the award for best corporate and social responsibility at the Marketing Excellence Awards (https://www.cim.co.uk/marketing-excellence-awards/finalists/).She is also involved in several non-profit initiatives.

Aparna Mishra - Senior Manager, Business and Technology Risk Consulting

Aparna is an AI leader with EY global delivery services, based out of Bangalore (India) office. She has more than 20 years of experience in the field of analytics where she has been managing the large and complex AI programs for different sectors and domains. She has expertise in quantitative business analytics with special focus on predictive modelling, machine learning, deep learning and time series forecasting. She has also worked on trusted-AI framework and governance structure to improve customer life-cycle models at acquisition, cross sell and retention stage. She is an expert consultant to lead client conversations in AI strategy design and implementation. Recently she has been awarded Women in AI leadership award organized by the Analytics India Magazine.

Celine Suban - Intern, EY Malta Technology Consulting Team

Celine Suban is currently an intern at EY Malta’s Technology Consultant team. She has been developing readily available content into e-learns for the firm, applying her academic knowledge to practice. Celine Suban is a final year student reading for Bachelor of Science in Information Technology (Honours) (Artificial Intelligence) at the University of Malta. As part of her studies Celine spent an Erasmus semester abroad at the University of Groningen.