 us to digital skills to understand digital services and equal opportunity to use them productively and safely. And safety is really a key issue. And this was also underscored at the commission on the status of women, including the challenges, because we talk very often about the opportunities, but the challenges that are associated with the misuse of new and emerging digital technologies, specifically those that affect women and girls, such as inciting violence, hatred, discrimination, and hostility, including negative stereotyping and stigmatization against women and girls. Across the region, UN Women is working to scale up our partnerships and our programming to bridge the digital gender divide. And our approach has focused on four key areas. The first is ensuring that women and girls are equal and meaningful partners in the digital sector. The second, and a really critical one, is addressing gender stereotypes, discriminatory norms, and masculinity. The third, ensuring greater social capital, equality, and empowerment. And the fourth is prioritizing digital technology and the changing world of work. And I wanted to just briefly highlight one concrete example, which has been very much a partnership-based example of our work in Bosnia, Herzegovina, where we conducted research on the gender gap and STEM. And the research found that 75% of boys in primary school prefer to have a career in programming compared with only 54% of primary school girls. And that primary school students believe that men are better programmers, mechanical engineers, astronomers, civil engineers, and electrical engineers, while women are considered better psychologists and journalists. So as always, inclusivity is key, and women and girls really need the opportunity to embark on a career path in ICT. They need equal access to technical and transferable skills, not just to be provided with basic digital skills. So I also want to highlight, related to this example of Bosnia, Herzegovina, a joint project that was undertaken by UN Women UNICEF and UNDP with support from Sweden. It was an ICT girls project, where we saw thousands of students engaging in robotics, set up IT school clubs. And also during the pandemic, we saw 3,000 women engaged in online efforts to rebuild their skills and over 140 women working in mentoring pairs to help women develop an online career path. So in conclusion, let me just underline that as we all know, digitalization is changing the world and the lives of people everywhere. And those that are able to embrace this change will excel. But those that are excluded risk being left behind. We need to ensure that girls and women in all their diversity are able to benefit from and meaningfully influence the process of digitalization. And while ICT, a girls in ICT day is really celebrated to raise awareness about the gender digital divide and lack of representation of girls and STEM. It's really important this year with all the data, evidence and commitments that already exist, to think about how we can move forward further on advancing concrete action and support for concrete change. So it's really inspiring to be here and to hear about all the transformative work that's being done by all partners to bridge the digital divide. So thank you once again for the opportunity to participate in this discussion. And as you and women, we look forward to working with all of you to advance this important agenda for women and girls across the region and worldwide. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to see both sections. So we have Mr. U.S. Deputy Coordinator of the President of the United Nations, joining us to share her experience of her celebration at the country level. So we'd like to invite Ingrid to take the floor. Hi, how are you? Can you hear me? I'm interested on this. Great. So I'm joining you actually from an event that we're doing at the moment with over 100 IT girls here. And actually, Joanne, you just referenced the initiative, the IT girls event in Bosnian Herzgavena. And it's really exciting. And I'd really like to thank UNDP, UNICEF, UNWomen and UNFPA who have all come together to pull this event together here in Bosnian Herzgavena. And it's really a celebration of the importance of ITC in terms of girls. And it's a real privilege to actually be able to speak to you from this event in terms of ITU given your importance to the region and also globally. So I mean, Joanne covered a little bit in terms of some of the really important work that's been done to look at the analysis of Bosnian Herzgavena, which I think is those reflections are very important, particularly when it comes to stigma, culture, perceptions and these sorts of barriers that we deal with a lot. But I also wanted to touch on a few other things. I mean, ITU recently became a member of our Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework in Bosnian Herzgavena. And why that was so important for us for the 18 agency funds and programs that are part of that agreement is because of the expertise that ITU brings on the digital side, but also the broader area. And I think, Joanne, you highlighted that well, that it's not just about the digital infrastructure, it's everything else that goes with it that we really need to be thinking about. And so this has been important also because digital transformation is a priority for Bosnian Herzgavena, not only because of the need to develop a 21st century economy and all the other areas that go with it, it is a part of our framework agreement, part of the partnership that we have with government as the United Nations and a commitment that we've made, but it's also important for the EU accession priorities and the aspirations of the country towards the European Union. And we see this across agriculture, we see this across environmental protection, and of course we see it as well in terms of gender equality, but also in terms of the IT sectors. So ITU actually led the development of a digital profile for the UN country team, which has been important because what it's done is it's helped us really focus on what we're doing and how we can better maximize collectively the expertise, the competencies and all the different support that we're doing. And the UN here is actually doing a huge amount across digital transformation. And what we needed to do was look at how we could bring that together to get the best impact in terms of our partnership with the country. So for us, why ITC and why girls? I mean, two months ago on International Women's Day, and thank you again, you and women and others for really putting the spotlight on that area, we focused on really how to close the gender gaps in science, technology and innovation. And this was really key to really getting this started a little bit more here, and which is what we're building on today. So for the United Nations of ASEAN-Hurtskivina, closing that gap is actually a really important priority of the country team. And it's something where there's been a lot of work. So, and one of the reasons for that is that as Joanne highlighted, I mean, according to the latest findings that you and the women and the ITU study around the gender gap in terms of the STEM fields in Bosnian-Hurtskivina, 33% of girls think that their family would not encourage them to take up the studies in the field belonging to STEM. So unfortunately, the social attitudes, the perceptions, the peer pressure, which has a huge impact as we all know in school, as well as the expectations of families, means that even at a basic level, there is this feeling that there isn't a support structure around girls actually being part of taking on STEM roles. UNICEF also has done a really important ICT mapping of schools. And I think what's really enlightening that came out of that is that we see that there's 583 schools across Bosnian-Hurtskivina that don't even have access to the internet. And so, and all but four of those schools are in rural areas. So we see then also the rural urban divide coming in. And even at a basic level, and I actually spoken to parents and teachers around this, when they're learning on, some of the students are learning about STEM, they're learning to write the definition of the World Wide Web as a, that is the definition of STEM. I apologize, we're starting to get going here. So even at a basic level, in terms of the children, both girls and boys, by the way, they don't even have the basics in terms of being able to engage in the 21st century economy from a job perspective, but also to take on this interest to learn the interest. And teachers themselves are very keen to work in this area as are the ministries of education. So this is a really important area for us. So the IT industry in Bosnian-Hurtskivina is one of the fastest growing industries though. It generates more than 5 million convertible marks annually and it's growing year on year. But what we also see is only 23% of the jobs are held by women in that sector. And so, where you have 77% of the jobs held by men, that also has an impact in terms of the engagement, the role models and others, in terms of girls' willingness or young women's willingness to actually go into the sector. So to bring more girls and young women to the sector, we've been supporting the leadership of women in IT as role models. But their role models, not only to girls, they're also role models to boys. Having more women in the IT sector is important for the whole society, both across all of the different aspects. So through the IT Girls Initiative, supported by UNDP UNICEF and UN Women, we've had more than 2,000 young women and girls who've had the opportunity to take part in the IT sector. That's a lot. And that's really having a catalytic effect, as you can see by the events that are going on behind me at the moment. They're very inspired and engaged. But IT Girls have also understood and designed their own programs. So it's not just about doing programs, it's actually about them taking on and designing their own work. And so what we also saw come out of the IT Girls program was the first ever IT Girls mentorship program designed for women and girls in the tech industry. And this is important because of course, mentorship is very, very key to building confidence within a sector and being able to engage in it. So we had 162 mentors and mentees from 30 different cities. And they focused on areas such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, software development, robotics, neural networks, and many different other areas that were very important to actually have that engagement. Recently, also UNDP, through its economic governance for growth project, has established various STEM laboratories in 32 different primary and secondary schools with the aim of really promoting digital skill development, encouraging creativity and critical thinking. This has been important because we see that how important school teachers are. And there's a real focus in Bosnia and Herzkowena on the education system and school teachers. So we've had 235 girls who've learned about robotics and artificial intelligence and created robotic projects based on their own ideas. I have a young daughter, every time there's one of these IT girls events and they have the robotics stands, she immediately goes to it and starts playing with this. And for her, it's fantastic to have this role model of these robotics and girls or young women doing this work and we want to see more of that because there is no reason why it shouldn't be. So I would like to really also emphasize the importance, again, of partnering with the ministries of education across Bosnia and Herzkowena. The test summit last year was fantastic. The Transforming Education Summit in terms of working with the ministries and we're really trying to capitalize that also with the excellent partnership with ITU and UNICEF in terms of trying to look at how we can deal with some of these challenges that I've outlaid. Particularly in terms of developing quality learning opportunities for girls from formal education, both in primary and secondary schools, but also early interventions, starting at primary schools where it's really important to spark the interest in the IT sector and the STEM areas from an early age and to equip the next generation with the skills necessary so that they can pursue the higher education because it has to be building block towards that as well as then a career in the IT. Crucial in this role in terms of skill-building aspects for girls, but also very much in terms of eliminating the gender biases in classrooms. And so, and using gender-responsive teaching methods which is another area of focus that's incredibly important. So the IT Girls Initiative has developed various manuals therefore for teachers on both these advanced digital schools, but also on gender-responsive teaching methods and have trained more than 100 teachers from 50 schools. And we're hoping to be able to amplify that and take that further. So, but I also want to highlight one of the things that we'll be discussing today as well which is online violence. So when we talk about ICT and girls and young women and women, we also need to recognize that the digital space is not always safe. And that we've also seen that women and girls often at more risk. So the online violence is globally, we've seen that 85% of women have reported witnessing online violence and nearly 40% have experienced it personally. We've seen this, for example, just through the elections that we had here. And last year we had elections and we saw that when it comes to the women candidates, they received a much higher level of, how should I say, online social media comments that were very disturbing compared to their male counterparts. So, and young girls see this and others see this and they're exposed to it. So this is a very important area to focus on as well. If we want to actually have to be able to move forward in terms of ICT in girls. So thank you very much. I hope I've covered a few issues. I've given you a few challenges, but also some of the excellent work that's going on here in Bosnia and Herzegovina. And I'm going to go and join all of these amazing girls here who are just doing incredible, innovative work. And so thank you to everyone. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. So next up, we're sharing the bonus brief examples of the space first mission for us closer to the reality of the issues that one of the girls is facing when it comes to entering the ICT sector. And in terms of good practices that can be replicated and it would really invite our speakers to drop in the chat and sort of initiatives and sort of good example of reports that can be accessed by our audience to check. And likewise also invite our audience to put some questions in the chat. And we will try to answer them as we go and think about it right. And so Ingrid also really highlighted I think the cross-cutting aspect of gender equality and gender digital divide. And we didn't need to work elaboratively on the topic and leverage the expertise across agencies but also across sectors. And with this, I would like to invite to the floor a busy Kokliku, apologies for the name, who is the expert on competitiveness at the Regional Cooperation Council. So when we speak about the way forward in Europe, of course it's really important to also hear about the work of the RCC, the great work of the RCC so we'd like to hand it over to you. Good morning. Thank you, Sarah. I do like the French version of spelling of my name. So greetings to everyone. And I'm happy as well to be here and to start the day by celebrating ICT, you girls in ICT together with ITU and all partners that are joining us here today. ICT women empowerment and digitalization are in fact two of the RCC topics that are very dear to us but not only to RCC, it seems that empowering women in the digital transformation together with the green transition is going to shape the future. We are all aware that gender equality is very much work in progress and to achieve disparity we need to give women and girls the right tools. Technology and internet can be the right tools that can save us enablers for women and girls but they also need to be accompanied by the right opportunities and digital skills. Inga brought some in the welcoming remarks brought some data on education and it's true that all over Europe, the region there is some solid data when it comes to some gender parity achieved in education in ICT but there's still a mismatch between the educational parity and the gender divide that we still see in careers in STEM. So to mention a little bit the situation globally in cutting edge fields like artificial intelligence only one in five professionals are actually women. 12% of members of national science academies are women globally and women represent only 33% of all researchers. Narrowing down to the regional data, the Western Balkans RCC conducted the first regional Western Balkans Digital Economy and Society Index the so-called DESI report last year which shows that only 2.6% of employed persons were ICT specialists in 2021 all over the Western Balkan region. And out of these, only 19% of ICT specialists were women again, Western Balkan average which is an indication of a severe gender balance issue and looking further to enterprises only 14% of enterprises actually provided ICT training to their employees according to 2020 data. Of course, the data goes on looking at economy level at regional level showing more or less the same that again women beneficiaries from public grant schemes are quite low from the ICT sector there's less women managers, et cetera, et cetera. There are also less than 70 FinTech companies in the Western Balkans and majority of their employees are men. But this does not mean that the data should discourage us because there's a lot of opportunities and initiatives that we already heard today starting from you level, you programs have now long highlighted the importance of gender equality and applying for calls for various grants, et cetera. To bring a recent example, the Horizon 2020 rule to impose gender equality action plans has already brought a positive impact and leads to more balance support. Going back to what RCC is doing we, when it comes to empowering women we established the two regional networks in the Western Balkans which are the regional network of women in STEM and the regional network of women in entrepreneurship. Of course, both aiming to promote embracing of STEM education and careers by more girls and women in the region promote entrepreneurship also recognizing the need to support the digital upskilling and re-skilling through tailor-made programs and mentorship programs. This year in January, RCC launched the Choose STEM Future online campaign to raise awareness and encourage young girls to enroll in STEM education and pursue STEM careers. We are happy to say that during January, April of this year the whole time that the campaign has been running so far we have received over 7 million views across the Western Balkans targeted groups and social media platforms. And it's a campaign that has been done by bringing concrete role, inspirational role models from the Western Balkans, women and girls that are pursuing STEM in the region. Through various flagship events of RCC the Western Balkans Women Entrepreneurs of the Year the Balkaton Awards, the Butterfly Innovation Awards we have continuously recognized the digital technologies as tools that create new opportunities more entrepreneurship and more jobs. To bring an example, the Balkaton Awards that have been running for three years now and a competition that's focusing and inviting smart digital solutions to boost potential for startups and SMEs in the Western Balkans. In its second edition, we introduced a special award dedicated to girls known as Girls Power. It was actually won by a team of young girls from North Macedonia who were not only awarded with a special prize but were provided further with mentoring, financial support and promotional support. I take the opportunity here to inform the preparations for the fourth edition of Balkaton have actually started. So stay tuned, follow our social media and once the call is launched please disseminate among your networks and feel free to apply. Just last month we successfully organized a joint event with EBRD and EIB dedicated to investing in digitalization in the Western Balkans. Again, very important outcomes and messages on what is happening in the region and what we could do further to support digitalization in the region. I'm going to bring just a couple of data from the outcomes of this event. The percentage of households connected to broadband in the Western Balkans is 81% which is 3% higher than the EU average and the mobile data for the ability average in the Western Balkans is 1.9% of GNI per capita. Again, triple the EU average. This is very good news. It means we have connectivity. It comes in line with the ambitions efforts of the Western Balkan governments to digitalize public services. And these efforts can be further facilitated by actions similar to the RCCs and other regional and international partners. The digital agenda of the Western Balkans as it might be well aware to all is coordinated by RCC, has been a successful example of regional cooperation over the past years leading to the Rome-like-at-home regime in the Western Balkans. So zero roaming tariffs across all Western Balkans as well as to the signing of the declaration between the EU and the Western Balkans on reducing tariffs between the EU and the Western Balkans as of October of this year. So why is this important? In today's world, we see it's very important to have a digital identity. Digital identity means access to opportunities and can be reachable equally by men and women. So through these multi-faceted stakeholders' engagement to address the existing digital gaps and by promoting digital literacy and skills, we can provide everyone with a digital identity. And to conclude, I would like to bring to the attention also the other flagship event, our annual Western Balkans digital summit, summit that is organized jointly by the Regents Economist and RCC. As we prepare for the upcoming digital summit, I would like to draw the attention back to the conclusions of 2022 last year summit that acknowledged the importance of digital skills. The Western Balkan economy is further committed to undertake concrete actions to support digital upskilling and reskilling at both central and local levels and in partnership with other regional organizations as well as to embark on more initiatives and programs that aim to close this digital skill mismatch and enhance the digital literacy of different groups in particular women, young people and the Roma community. So thank you again. It's been a pleasure to be here and look forward to more cooperation and taking these actions forward altogether. It's interesting to have so many people in the chat and also to all the first speakers to do the same. Digital skills and gender is very high above the agenda of the Western Balkans. So we'll hear your real cultural action here. And to conclude the segment, we have Commissioner Marie Gabriel, of Mr. Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth that has shared with us the commitment and initiative in written statements. And this written statement is being read out and presented by Ambassador Lotte Knudsen who is the head of the delegation of the European Union to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva. And so for this I would like to ask make it to display the video. Thank you. As Ambassador of the European Union, I have the pleasure of reading out this statement on behalf of European Commissioner Marie Gabrielle. I'm delighted on this 13th annual Girls in ICT day to see that the International Telecommunications Union and Chiquitas continue their essential work to empower women and girls to acquire STM and ICT skills. This is crucial. And these efforts remain as relevant as ever. In 2009, a year before the first edition of this day, women represented only 26% of graduates in computing and engineering in Europe. 14 years later, this number has hardly changed. Yet the world around us continues to evolve, the ways we live, learn and work becoming increasingly digital. Today, almost all jobs require some level of digital competence. At the same time, we're witnessing a gap between the needs of our societies and labor markets and the number of people equipped to respond. I am fully mobilized to address these issues in all facets of my portfolio. Last year alone, our Girls Go Circular project provided free online learning to over 14,014 to 19-year-old girls in 15 countries helping to upgrade their digital and entrepreneurial skills. By 2027, the project aims to train some 50,000 young women across Europe, across all member states. In parallel, our flagship education and training program, Erasmus Plus, provides over 26 billion euros from 2021 to 2027 to help women of all ages to achieve their full potential in STM and ICT studies and careers. With over four billion available for 2023 alone, the program is the major leverage of our action to empower women. The European Year of Skills that we celebrate this year comes with targeted actions to encourage all people across Europe to upskill and reskill so that they can make full use of the opportunities provided by the green and digital transitions. To do so, we must ensure that everyone has equal opportunities to participate in lifelong learning and strengthen our efforts to break down pervasive gender stereotypes and gendered ideas about roles in our societies. The work of like-minded partners like the ITU and Chiquitas is necessary and precious. I thank you for your commitment and determined efforts to bring about real change for women and girls. I wish you an insightful and inspiring discussion at today's event. Thank you for your skills. Thank you very much. Once again, our speakers of this first panel for sharing their expertise, their recommendations and recalls your actions. Ambassador Nautik Nutsen mentioned that this year is the European Year of Skills as declared by the European Commission and in fact, the girls in the city team chose this year was chosen by the youth and last year was also the European Year of Youth. So there is a lot of match here going on and of course youth has a very big role to play in this discussion. So now I would like to start our dialogue on what do young people need and want to create their digital features. So I would invite all of our youths present with us today to turn on the camera so that we can start this dialogue. And I would like to start by giving the floor to each and every one of them to present themselves. So we have with us today, I turn on the pseudo-poulos with the Generation Connect Europe Youth Envoy who is also Generation Connect Europe Youth Envoy. We have with us as well, Netanyi Tarkova, who is Generation Connect Europe Youth Envoy. And finally, we also have Lucy Riederova, who is Chiquita's ambassador and lecturer. So I will start with the person I see on my screen for the moment and I will start with Atena Vasilopoulos to present herself but give a little bit of information on the background. Hello, everyone. I hope you can hear me well. I'm very happy to be here today. So my name is Atena Vasilopoulos. I'm originally French and Greek, but I've been raised and I currently live in Luxembourg where I work as a consultant for Chronos Europa where I accompany European institutions on their digital journey. I am a member of the European Generation Connect Group and yes, I'll give the floor to my counterpart, Netanyi. Thank you very much, Atena. Greetings, everyone. My name is Nadalita Tarchova and I am from the Czech Republic. I work as a research specialist at the interdisciplinary research team on internet and society at Mossark University. My academic background is in media studies and social counseling and I'm currently pursuing a PhD in the field of media studies where I'm focusing on the digital skills of children and adolescents. So thank you for having me today and over to Zeynep. Hello, everyone and greetings. I'm so happy with you and I'm Zeynep from Turkey. I'm a Generation Connect gender champion in 2022 and after that I am a Generation Connect youth in Europe and so I'm happy to be here. I'm a UNDP, I'm working at a UNDP country office. I'm so sorry, I'm so exciting and thank you so much for the initiative. Lucie? Hello, greetings to everyone as well. I feel very honored that I can be a part of this conversation today. I'll probably be the youngest one. And so I am a Microsoft STC center trainee and I'm working as a part-time Chiquita lecturer and I try to specialize in cybersecurity. Thank you very much. So thank you so much for all of you to have presented yourself. It's really exciting to have you here, really exciting to hear your perspective soon and I would like to start and break the ice a little bit and dig into the digital skills topic. So I would like to ask this question to all of you in fact, which is why are digital skills so important for young people in particular looking at young women? So perhaps I'll start again with Athena and we'll go into the same cycle. Thank you, Sarah. So basically I think that in today's economy, having digital skills is not a nice to have but I must have as digital skills are basically a key component to participate in society. So I think from there the equation is quite easy. So if you're a young person, you don't have digital skills, you can just not participate in today's society. And it's not only about work as much as I know the European Commission has been mentioning that around 90% of jobs today require a certain level of digital skills but it's also for communicating or collaborating or even accessing information, informing yourself, creating content or even knowing how to protect your devices and personal data and digital environments. All of these require different types and levels of digital skills. So now regarding women specifically, while I know that digital skills levels between genders are roughly equal in Europe, we know that women only make up 80% of ICT specialists and 20% of graduates in ICT. And I think that's an issue for various reasons. As we mentioned often ICT specialists are the architects of today's economy and we already saw with topics related for example to AI algorithm, how without the inclusion of women in such topics, we are also projecting certain biases that we have in our society and reinforcing certain stereotypes. And in addition of only making sure that we build a world that represents all of us in society, I think it's also an opportunity for us to include more women in better paid jobs and reduce the persistent gender-based gap across the EU, which has also been a long product of long-standing gender segregation throughout the labor market. So yes, I'll give the floor to Natalie. Thank you very much. Thank you, Athena. I really agree with you that the knowledge of basic digital skills as nowadays often taken for granted as they open the door to not only as you mentioned the job opportunities, but also to personal development, establishing and maintaining relationships and so on. So I agree that it is necessary to be as inclusive as possible for this reason so that young women for instance, do not miss under many benefits and opportunities that information and communication technologies bring. However, speaking of opportunities, I also want to mention the risks online. Thanks to digital skills, we know that young people can better protect themselves from the pitfalls of the internet. For example, our recent research among European adolescents showed that girls are often more likely to be unintentionally exposed to harmful online content than boys. So if we do not teach them how to avoid such unwanted content as a precautionary measure or what to do after they experience it, it can lead to both short-term as well as long-term negative consequences. Thank you. So that's where the perspective is, isn't it? Would you like to share yours? Okay, well, I'm starting, maybe. Today, the concept of leadership has a very important position, and especially if we think in terms of women and girls, the leader models that can now use technology inactive and the sustainable way have become very important. However, I think that the technology can protect women from any kind of violence they may face. And the more actively women can use technology, the easier they can meet their own needs. And for example, they can share their success stories and stand out in the carriers. I think that the more space we provide for women and girls and the world of technology, the more liberated they become. The girls can manage and develop the world by actively using technology. I think that the both gender equality and gender equality can be achieved with the facilitating role of technology and girls and women can take on this role. Thank you so much, Sineb. And then, last but not least, we have Lucy. Thank you very much, Sarah. I absolutely have to say that I very much agree with everything that's been already said. And the only thing that I'd probably just like to probably get back to regarding the Cybersecurity Center is that in today's society, we are overwhelmed with a lot of information, especially on social media and on various platforms that try to share information going on around this world. And I deem it extremely important to have the right digital set of skills to know which information is the one you really want to see as objective and to really create your own opinion and be able to think critically about the things going around the world. So I think this is one of the digital skills that is extremely important and we should really enforce young people to learn and to see everywhere. Thank you. That's what I'm saying. I understand why digital skills is so important, but also certain pointers and the challenges and how digital skills can in fact help facing those challenges. But at the same time, could you tell me more about the challenges that you are facing or that you faced in the past or the challenges that you could observe to secure or to gain those digital skills? So we see back to you on this one. Can you hear me well? I'm not really sure. The video just really glitched a lot. Was this question directed to me? I just want to make sure that you can hear me well because I've also had a few messages that my song quality was not the best. Yes, it would be very helpful if you could repeat the question asked, please. So I was mentioning that you and your peers already mentioned a few challenges and how digital skills is important to tackle those challenges. But I would like you to develop a little bit more on this. And if you could share with us, what are the challenges that you faced or you're currently facing to enter the SAT sector or to gain those digital skills? Or if not on your personal journey, perhaps you've identified some of those challenges that you'd like to inform the others. Yes, thank you. Thank you very much. I definitely have to say that I am very, very new to this world. I've been only trying to take in everything I could in the last two years. And it was mainly from the education sector, what job-wise it wasn't really that various as I'd like it to be at this point. But I have to say that the ICT sector was very, very kind to me so far. I had some very, very good experience working with people abroad and being seen as someone important and someone respected in any environment. But what really bugs me whenever I talk about my line of work is the society, is the place where I can't just say I work in ICT without getting the weird stares, without being asked questions like, and do you even know what cloud means? So I think in my personal prospect as a teenager, trying to learn more about IT and trying to maintain a career is that the societal point of view is very, very harsh and absolutely not supportive. And also as in trying to get more experience, see more programs, maybe get more job opportunities, I don't see that marketed enough. I always have to dig very deep, go around different sites to really see some opportunities because that is something I don't see marketed for women. Whenever I see a job offer, it's really targeted for men and I never really see myself in there with the way that it's being pursued for other people. Thank you. We just saw the name of the company having more girls in the ICT sector. I started telling you when they're trying to find those opportunities and really the necessity of having a environment as empowering for women and girls to enter it. So thanks a lot for sharing your vision on this. And now I would like to ask the same question to Natalie on what challenges you have faced, you're facing as you've observed through your approach. Thank you, Sarah. Maybe I can follow up on what Luzzi already said because if I look at the general level of barriers in acquiring digital skills, I would say that the so-called social desirability is a common barrier for young women and girls. For example, also in my studies and our research we're conducting in my workplace, we often encounter responses from girls and young women that they think it is understandable that they will not be as proficient in digital skills as boys purely because they're females. Yet we know from numerous studies that gender is not a predictor of digital skills per se at all. Therefore there is a need to overcome this some kind of a gender stereotype that causes girls and women to underestimate their abilities in the first place. And also I would like to point out that when girls and boys self-report their perceived digital skills, they generally show a trend where girls underestimate their skills. But when given practical tests, girls can keep pace with boys easily and they can even outperform them. So this is a message that I would like to highlight in this regard. Thank you for your call. Even though women are actually very successful in the studies sometimes it doesn't always translate into active participation in the asset sector because of this lack of confidence as well and here it also shows me the importance of having role models to show that this is possible. And so finally I'd like to turn to Athena for the same question on the challenges. Yes, thank you Sarah and thank you Natalie for this great input, which is funny because I have a small anecdote on this is that I did a coding bootcamp a few years ago and after that a lot of my male counterparts wanted to become programmers and they didn't really question themselves of whether or not they were ready for it. While a lot of female counterparts and myself were thinking that we had to go through more training and keep working on the side because otherwise we could not do the job or even learn on the job, which I think was interesting. But in addition to this, I would like to strengthen the fact that I think that in my experience a challenge that I've seen in entering also digital skills is first identifying the digital skills you need. I see a lot of young people telling me nowadays, okay, I wanna get into more digital sphere because I know it's important and it will make me more employable, but where do I start? Because you don't necessarily have to become a programmer or to have a very technical background to enter this space. And I think that it's very hard initially considering also the amount of information we're thrown on to decide in which direction you go. So I would say that one of the challenges I experience and that I see around me is firstly identifying the digital skills you may need and seeing the direction in which you can use them. And I think that you can develop digital skill throughout your life. It's never too late to start developing them and you can also do it for a very interdisciplinary approach. And that's something that we often forget and we think that if we are not engineers or if we don't have a computer science background, it's very hard to pivot in this. And of course, like any skill that you're learning, it is hard, but I think that if you have a vision for yourself of what skills you want, for what purpose, it will also help you enter the field of ICT more easily. And you will also discover that there are more jobs that require digital skills and stronger technical backgrounds than just being a programmer or an engineer, let's say, which is often like a very black and white vision of how ICT professions work, I would say. Thank you actually very much. The school still is glad about this. So I'm sure we'll just talk about all these changes but how do we break that, right? And so for this, I'd like to ask you if you had any example of successful initiatives in supporting women who goes in the ICT sector and also within the same cities, what were the characteristics that made it successful? So I think that the score is back to you and this one. Sorry, Sarah, but I really didn't hear what you just said. Okay, so with that, I would like to speak a little bit more and I'm just gonna speak like loud already. So that's, yes, I would like to share that example of how to break the barriers of gender digital divide and I would like you to expand a little bit on what are successful initiatives in supporting women and girls in the ICT sector and what are the characteristics that made that successful? Okay, thank you. So in terms of examples of successful initiatives in supporting women and girls in the ICT sector, I think that depending on where you live, there are plenty of different opportunities. In my experience, I embarked on my tech journey in 2018-19 because I had the chance to bump into women in digital empowerment, also known as WIDE in Luxembourg, which is basically a nonprofit organization, which mission is to close the gender gap in the field of ICT in Luxembourg and generally encourage more women to seize opportunities I created by the digital economy and I've been volunteering with them since then and they have really helped me in acquiring certain technical skills but also developing myself in this sector. And I would say that one key factor which I think is very successful, mainly to this organization, considering that more of my experience is in this organization, is that I've seen them as being very agile and not getting stuck in one vision of what digital skills mean in the sense that when I started working with them, the focus was much more on learning, for example, like coding through web development and so forth, also because we have to acknowledge that they're trends also in digital skills. Back in the days, learning web development was the thing to do, nowadays we're talking much more about data science. So it really depends on these different waves but I would say that they were agile enough to evolve with the rapid technological changes that we're seeing around us and allow women to have an overview of the digital skills needed. So for example, last year we started talking much more about cybersecurity with them and as Lucy knows, it's also something that often is overseen because it's not as sexy or it's not as interesting to women but it's so crucial that we develop cybersecurity and also behaviors, especially as Natalie said, that women are more prone to being facing harmful content. So I would say that being agile is key but also in addition of being agile, and this is something that I think I've learned while discussing it with the director of white was the idea of back in the days, they started as women in digital empowerment. Nowadays they're just going for white which is the acronym of it and we're going away from this focus of being so woman-centric just because if you want to create spaces for women it can be also very hard to create them aside from society in a way to create this kind of subgroups of people who are for sure working for a specific segment but by doing this sometimes it might be even harder for these women to then re-enter the economy. And it's something that I think most successful initiatives nowadays will keep in mind that of course their goal is to bring women on board but one way of doing it just for example with youth empowerment overall it's not by creating little subgroups operating on the march of society but by creating very heterogeneous groups and diverse groups to then really push forward for inclusion. And I think that's for sure the second big point about successful initiatives I would say. Thank you so much for the attention. I think they really brought forward the fact that women should not be bounded to a specific skill sets and they really need to have access to the whole portfolio of what digital skills represent and as you say it's always evolving so with this they should always have access to the newest skills as well. And now I would like to ask the same question to Zena if you can share with us some examples of successful initiatives. Thank you. Yeah and firstly the Athena I agree with you because and if you want to be create a leadership of women in the ICT and we can provide a safety spaces in area. And so one example is the women's tech makers community a Google initiative I have been working with for a long time. The women tech makers ambassador program supports women in tech who want to make an impact and give back to their communities. As an ambassador you will engage with your community by participating in one or more leadership activities quite quickly. And ambassadors receive support from Google and the broader ambassador community and the women tech makers ambassadors are leaders around the world are patient about the empowering their communities by organizing events, public speaking, creating content and mentoring and et cetera. And with access to a global community and decadent resources ambassador are helping build a world that all women can success in tech. As in another example in Turkey in Turkey Habitat Association runs various projects and programs for girls to success in stand out in the STEM and ICT. And it's very important to introduce girls at a young age to the world technology because the technology shaping the world and societies. If you want to raise successful and strong women leaders it's very important to raise awareness on this issue. So to break the words. Last question, the same last question goes to Lucy. So this is an example of successful initiatives. Thank you very much Sarah. I absolutely have to say yet again that I agree with what's been said here. Some very, very strong messages that I think really, really need to be heard. And from my own personal experience I was lucky enough such as probably Athena in her own situation to find an organization that really helped me kick off the career start when it comes to ICT. And that was in my case, Chiquitas with the summer school and really seeing what ICT could mean what it can mean in the world for me, for a girl, for a woman, how I can move forward. So one of the very successful initiatives I think that this organization holds is really the support of being available of truly having a safe space to come and see where I can grow, what I can make myself better at and truly trying to target different ages and different groups of women starting off with the really young ones. So we can really introduce them to this world. And so they can see that there is an opportunity for them out there, whether it is as a program or whether it is someone in big data science or whether it is cybersecurity and truly trying to see that it can be something more than just one simple program because that's how I usually see ICT being represented with someone behind a computer just typing a code. So what I really deem as successful is the accountability of this organization the availableness that you can call whenever and you can really communicate with the people and feel safe in the whole space to grow, to learn, to work. So this is something I feel incredibly grateful for and it's something I deem as very, very successful. Thank you. First of all, so particularly nurturing this environment for growth. So thanks for sharing your perspective on this. I'd like to answer all the questions for two or four minutes here. We've discussed about the challenges but what is there that is not done yet and that you would like to see happening? And so for this, I'd like to ask Netin what kinds of recommendations do you have for decision makers to make sure that women not only access the digital world but also can also achieve success in it? This is actually a pretty hard question but I believe that it is essential firstly to focus on the systematic education of women and girls. And it is very pleasing to see a number of initiators that are succeeding in doing so and I'm very grateful to also come from Czech Republic where Czech ethos are based and I'm very proud of them. And also that of course, new and new projects are being created that focus on this target group. So this is, I would say the first step but also secondly, I think that it is important to create this, let's say a climate in society that welcomes women and girls to grow in the field of information and communication technologies. Naturally, I don't have a specific recipe for this and I realized that this is more of a long-term process but as long as we view women and IT as unicorns there is still a lot of work to be done. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the next step and finally, Zenef, would you like to share your thoughts on this one? If you want women to be successful in ICT and STEM fields we first need to increase their safety in the online world. In the other words, women talk about their success in social media as much as they feel safe on the internet. At this point NGOs, governments, UN entities, technology companies and especially social media companies have important duties ensuring women's online safety. According to research, women hide their identities on social media and even stop using social media due to the cyberbullying they are exposed to and if you want to make a technology an inclusive model, we must first ensure gender equality in the technology sector. For example, women and girls don't want to work in engineering because the inequality is they face. And I think that all the institutions and organizations should work together to ensure that professions and science and gender less and especially youth participation is very important to reducing the impact of the gender equality and generation equality. I'll just make a few comments on the group stand and what's actually done. So we want to take forward those calls to actions, just initiatives that you shared. And yeah, thanks so much for this. We conclude on the dialogue and we'll be back soon for my segment or final segment for today's event which is a panel discussion of how can the private sector grow digital success for young women and girls. And then at your own dimension dimension the private sector so it's a good segue as well because indeed the private sector plays a critical role in supporting girls and young women in ICT. It is not only the provider of opportunities and career advancement but they also invest in education and training programs for diversity and equality. So thank you so much once again to all of you and before we move on to this panel I would like to invite Michael to share an example of a great tendency in the US to story me know that the who is the minister of digital transformation of Slovenia and who was also this year will submit on the information society chair for her thoughts on how countries can help connecting girls to digital skills opportunities. Distinguished guests dear participants of the conference ladies and gentlemen today the world is changing at an unprecedented pace digital technologies have transformed the way we communicate learn work and do business they have also empowered us to create new solutions to address some of the world's most pressing challenges in order to do that all members of the society should be equally included in digital transformation and no one should be left behind the gender rural urban and age digital divide represent a particular concern even though more girls are in school today than ever before women and girls are underrepresented in STEM studies just one in three researchers is a woman and women account for just 35 percent of graduates in STEM related fields their numbers are even lower in cutting edge fields such as artificial intelligence with only 22 percent of women if these gender inequalities are so significant it is because they're deeply rooted in our society it is because of the persistence of gender stereotypes and prejudice which sometimes persuade girls into believing that scientific studies are not for them despite their tremendous potential women and girls bring diversity to research expand the pool of science professionals and provide a fresh perspective to science and technology benefiting everyone the ICT sector is a major contributor to economic growth in many countries by encouraging more girls to pursue ICT studies and careers they can contribute to the field's growth which in turn can lead to economic empowerment of women in Slovenia we strive to implement gender sensitive strategies such as raising awareness studies and training mentorship and networking to narrow the gender digital gap our share of women in ICT is 17 percent one of our main goals is to increase the number of ICT professionals from the current 4.8 percent to 10 percent by 2030 and we see increasing the number of female ICT professionals as an essential part of the solution as a woman in technology myself I'm particularly interested in mentorship and peer-to-peer encouragement at our ministry there is a great share of women and it is above the average in the government girls who pursue careers in ICT should become role models for other girls encouraging them to pursue STEM studies and careers this requires a systematic approach starting at an early age with the education of girls continuing through primary and secondary schooling and also through encouragement for lifelong learning retraining and upscaling during the working period I'm convinced that only in cooperation with all the stakeholders the government business education and research organizations and the non-governmental sector we can address this challenge which requires both reigning and a change in our mindset different initiatives at the new level such as the european year of skills can contribute to achieving our goal to empower girls to develop digital skills for life thank you for your attention great thank you so much and I think we've seen today we again heard about the importance of having a lot longer risk to make sure that we always are up to date with the new technologies the new skills needed that goes along with those technologies and with this I would like to invite our next panel speakers we have with us Heather Johnson who is the vice-president of sustainability and appropriate responsibility at Ericsson we have with us Julia Yasinja who is the head of international relations and strategic advertising at Notia and finally we have Barra Bonova who is associate professor and vice-team at the faculty of informatics at Masarik University thank you thank you for being with us today and in fact I would like to start by giving the floor to Heather Johnson for her perspective on how can the private sector grow digital success for girls and young women thank you so much it's really a pleasure to be a part of this event and I'd really like to start by acknowledging the good work of the ITU certainly by Yaroslav as well as the long-standing leadership of Doreen Bogdan Martin to progress closing the gender digital divide I'm here today because the private sector does have a significant role to play in supporting digital success for the next generation of women this is important not only as part of our corporate responsibility in society but also to ensure the talent pipeline in Europe as well as across the 180 markets where Ericsson is active I'll start with really how we support digital success for girls and young women and then explain the part we're playing to support it first and foremost it means ensuring that women and girls across the world have access to meaningful connectivity connectivity is a global engine of sustainable economic growth and a powerful powerful enabler of social inclusion but it is not just infrastructure it is as we've heard from you know across every panel today and very eloquently from the last it is also about upskilling to really ensure a full participation in the digital economy and society you know which will then truly leverage the value of that connectivity and this ranges from basic skills that enable women to access online services to more advanced digital skills preparing them for future career opportunities we've heard many statistics today but one that Ericsson is putting concerted effort towards is that today women remain a minority in both STEM education and careers representing only 28 percent of engineering graduates 22 percent of artificial intelligence workers and less than a third of the tech sector employees globally Ericsson's global digital inclusion program works to improve equality including gender equality in a number of ways we've committed to positively impact 1 million children and youth by 2025 by providing access to digital learning and skills development programs and to date we've reached 400,000 people through our flagship education program connect to learn and connect to learn focuses really on two pillars looking at both connectivity and access to education as well as digital skills in the interest of time I'll focus on that digital skills pillar we're empowering the next generation of digital skills essential for the socioeconomic development of society and want to enhance education to make students employment ready one example is through our program called digital lab where we have it's an education program targeted at children between 11 and 16 to support them as they enter the world of programming robotics and automation it creates an open atmosphere for learning where instructors can share their love of coding and inspire the next generation of coders the program started in Gothenburg Sweden but has now been deployed across nine countries many in Europe as well as in China India South Africa and Brazil our learnings over the 20 years of collaboration with the UN across a variety of areas is that we can only meet global challenges together and addressing the digital divide requires strong public private partnerships by collaborating we can bring relevant high quality digital tools content training for access to education to all including those most disadvantaged and through partnerships aligned to national digital development strategies we can achieve universal equitable access to connectivity and empowerment I'd like to share briefly the work that we're doing with an organization called Technovation which really resonates with what I heard from the last panel of young women Erickson has started with has partnered with Technovation in a global virtual mentorship program that aims to inspire girls to be technology-led leaders and problem solvers in their communities Technovation enlists teams with up to five members who identify as female trans non-binary or gender conforming and ask them to identify a challenge in their community and learn how to build a mobile app or AI solution to help solve it Erickson employees volunteer to support Technovation so thinking about that mentorship capability and acting as mentors to teams of girls all over the world aiming to equip them with valuable digital skills and technological prowess Erickson mentors guide the girls in learning how to solve real-world problems through technology assisting them in their learning about programming app development and AI together with Technovation we're creating innovators and potentially the leaders of tomorrow with lessons in not only technology but business collaboration communication and entrepreneurship in conclusion the private sector has a vital role to play in driving digital success for girls and young women through working together we can achieve universal equitable access to connectivity and empowerment through knowledge skills and innovative solutions that transform lives and support a sustainable future for all thank you there's also an important perspective on some of the problems that were mentioned in the chat so thank you so much for sharing this and for sharing this initiative that's very important and very insightful and inspiring thanks a lot and first of all thanks for inviting me to join in celebrations on the international day of girls in ICT as my fellow knock-ins are celebrating across the world in the city of our headquarters at ESPO where they are reaching out today to high school children in particular girls to connect with them directly before they make their career choices and they are celebrating in Bangalore giving a spotlight to our female trainees and interns to show the projects the very interesting projects they are running there as they are doing in Nigeria and Ghana awarding best female students in ICT or in Argentina where they are collecting testimonials of how women see the role of tech in their lives and that across the generation so very different ways to but with one goal ICT is also a great place for girls for women to pursue their careers now what can we do as a private sector and obviously I had already highlighted quite some very inspiring aspects what what Ericsson is doing Nokia follows with with some of the similar patterns but I think first and foremost as a private company we need to create a perspective that if you as a young woman choose an ICT career you can find a rewarding indeed career perspective an inclusive workplace a workplace where there is no place for any gender bias and where any aspects of discrimination are spotted and mitigated and corrected so at Nokia for instance it's been since 2014 that all the leadership is trained on unconscious bias so that as line managers as leaders they are able to spot some of the indeed unconscious decisions that that some of us made to make our minds tends to make a shortcut to favor lookalikes spillo likes this is very much trained so that we don't act on that basis secondly what we do at Nokia we have a program of that's changed the unexplained pay gap so in 2019 there was a very big initiative across the company to reanalyze the salaries of employees based on their experience the job grade the duties that they have and if they are any if for the same job there was not the same pay to correct that now the obviously this if it would be spotted that a man is underpaid sure then they would be in the program too unfortunately the result was that the 90 percent of those cases where we found there wasn't an unexplained paid gap concerned women and so there was a mitigated action introduced so that those salaries were brought up to the level that that should be expected and this is now a recurring in all the processes so that once the gap was closed we don't allow it to reopen it's also about creating a workplace which gives an opportunity a true opportunity for women to grow in their careers going forward through for instance dedicated development programs for females and finally a workplace that that can attract young females to to pursue is also workplace which respects the right work-life balance one of the what I find is really remarkable and something I want to spread and encourage other companies to consider is for instance the new child lead that we have which means that irrespective of the gender every employee of Nokia has a three months paid leave so here it's also an encouragement to young fathers at Nokia disappear for three months take care of your kids with that I hope the young women see that really ICT sector is for them too and they there and they should not fear that that they will not find an interesting job going forward but that's that's the basic in addition to that there is the whole reach out that we as a private sector can do to to indeed those who have not yet picked their careers at early stages so mostly the high school and here we have some of the activities I is to look into Europe in Poland I spoke yesterday with my colleague from bed ghost responsible for women of ICT sorry of IT event which is a recurring event targeting high schools and giving them an opportunity to meet face to face both with already an accomplished female leaders to show like to give them their the opportunity to talk with role models but equally so to give them an opportunity to talk with young female hires to be able to spread how it is to start as a young women in an ICT company very international ICT company in Antwerp my colleagues are bringing high school kids for the day of pie to be able to indeed see from inside what it is to work at at the ICT company what kind of skills are needed we had the girl greenhouse for girls event or in Kenya we have Nokia volunteers which go out to to high schools to be able to engage with with girls in their school environment to discuss a little bit what does it mean to be in the ICT sector indeed how to best prepare for it and show that this is definitely possible and something I'm super proud of is that while this is entirely a volunteering program we had more volunteers and actually opportunities to place Nokia into those engagements another way where I think we need to as a private sector where we have a role to play is to forge visibility of successful female leaders in the ICT sector engagements there could be what we do for other level as they were we award successful females as role models and give them extra spotlight but also working in college and with others initiatives such as change the face or I am remarkable campaigns just to show that ICT sector is actually very diverse and there is a space for everybody to grow and then so to summarize once we have the perspective for the young female leaders like hey it's it's really interesting and it's really a good place to be there the very vibrant ICT sector so please consider those careers make the right choices to prepare yourself for it when it comes to acquiring appropriate skills they are different in roles to the ICT sector I am personally an example somebody who did not study STEM and I managed to be in and I'm very happy about it but let's say there is I would encourage all the young ladies who are considering about what to study now if they are good in maths go for STEM because definitely that opens much more career choices both in technical and non-technical roles engineers are definitely rewarded so but if you don't feel like it ICT sector has also a variety of roles so there are other options as my example shows and to all of us today on the call spread the news or actually it's not the news but please confirm that working in ICT it's really a very it's fun it's rewarding and it's something that for those of us who who are inclined to follow the tech trends who are really willing to make a change into how the word will look like in years to come this is the place to be when we talk about creating an environment for women and girls to join the ICT sector and care responsibility is usually one of the main impediments for women to to take on leadership position in this ICT sector so thank you for this and also thank you for your patience because we are running late and thanks a lot to Vara for this especially so Vara Venova your associate professor and vice dean at the faculty of informatics of Masarec University and the floor is yours for answering on how the private sector can road to digital success. Thank you very much for the award and thanks to all the amazing speakers today I have so many notes I actually like a full list of notes from the event so a lot has been said I'll try to emphasize some things that I believe did not get enough space and I'll try to like go go to it through them through the lens of the topic of this discussion because we are speaking about the private sector and what private sector can do and I would look like inside the private sector you mentioned a couple of times also my co-speaker co-speakers in the panel that it's important to raise awareness also inside the companies right like in the leadership I have the opportunity in cooperation with Chikitas the name has been said a few times we are very proud of it and the Czech Republic so in cooperation with Chikitas I had the opportunity to train leaders in various tech companies I think it's a great benefit that I actually myself have technical backgrounds so I did study computer science I have my my doctoral degree in computer science I do research in software engineering and software architecture and different modern technologies and and their impact so when I talk to those leaders it's actually easier to be listened to you know like to really like create like a deep dialogue about about the topics and some things that I understood can really shift shift the industry in terms of being more diverse is understanding that opening up to the potential that women can bring in the industry is not not that social justice issue it is really it is really a competitive advantage to have women in the team and it's not really just about like having access to a greater talent pool but it's it's really about like having access to the talent pool that we do have underrepresented and we see that really like women can bring in so much like a kind of talent that we do not give enough space in the tech industry I see it like myself so I'm a software architect as a software architect you really need to be able to interconnect things in really like a lot of factors to to consider in your technical solution which is something that I see so like so underrepresented in my male colleagues being very like focused on a single aspect you know really like isolating these aspects from the factors that influence it but when I work with women I really see this like enormous potential and interconnecting the factors interconnect the details of like different you know like technical aspects and in addition to that like bringing the social aspect into the global picture now I believe like if we as a society want to move forward with technology and I think that the private sector is like what is on the forefront right of bringing the society towards like being really truly digital in our advantage we need more people who can interconnect disciplines with technology and really miss them I teach I'm a professor so I teach people at the university and I see the differences in the way how when we get more diverse we create more relevant technology for everybody and do not get me wrong in terms of you know like people thinking okay if girls bring more like social connection into technology maybe they are not technical enough that's not true at all like what I see is girls can be super technical and going in the core of the things and bring like really like going into details of understanding things in an incredible manner but they don't do it without understanding what is the purpose of it all you know like like how this serves a global purpose that we are trying to achieve and how the different details like technical details will lead me to that purpose and and so I would like to bring this in because very often we are basically losing talents by not recognizing talents in people who want to join technology and by not recognizing that maybe this like differences in interest and in and in the ways like what they find exciting exciting about technology is making us stronger if we are able to like bring this on and creating us like like higher value for the overall like like digital results that we are building and the products that we are building I have an opportunity to be a vice chair of a European network called Eugaine. Eugaine is a network of 40 companies of sorry 40 countries 40 countries occurs Europe we have 250 representatives that mostly in research and innovation and what we understand is that like there are certain things that are really you know like shared between different countries so with with with that respect also we've heard a lot about courage and confidence which I think is a huge thing especially in areas where we have girls underrepresented you know like when we hear them say I don't really feel that my solution is strong enough you know don't stop at that at that sentence like go deeper and try to understand because we too often see that women basically don't feel valued because they present themselves in a way that the environment is too harsh into saying okay if you don't feel that it's good enough it's probably not good enough and we stop there so and yeah we did a we did a couple of studies also in cooperation with with Chiquita's understanding that we we can do a huge step in companies with like helping women understand their value because very often this this step makes like it's enormous and we've heard in the youth panel about the about the summer school for high school girls in cooperation with Chiquita's I can say those those graduates then enter university and then enter companies and I can follow them throughout that journey right because as a professor and I also vice dean for industrial corporation so I lead the association of industrial partners at my at my faculty yeah I see how when we start early to instill this higher confidence about like why the differences make actually the strongest superpowers that they can bring to technology can then change the way they perceive themselves and the value they really bring because I believe we really need more girls in technology not just because we need more people but because they can make us stronger so thank you for that and thank you for the wonderful event yeah happy international girls in ICT day I think it's a it's a great day to celebrate thank you so very nice and we all smash points thanks also as well for sharing that inclusivity is keen to making sure that ICT tools and devices really answer the need of all corporations and then by including women in the ICT sector the sector can also make sure to benefit from all the talents that it can get so with this we conclude our events for today we're running a little bit late so unfortunately we won't be opening the floor for Q&A but I saw that it was already quite active in the class so I encourage you to take on this last few seconds or minutes to answer the final question that there is there and thank you so much once again for all of the speakers for joining us it was very insightful to hear all of your perspective and just to reflect on a couple of points that we've heard today we've heard for example the need for its supports to support extracurricular STEM enrichment program for girls and your women to expand the reach of those programs through partnership with the education sector for example to partner to start up ICT company an academic training program to encourage gender STEM sensitive environments and institute gender sensitive recruiting efforts to continue assuming and retraining the land throughout the working and the life cycle and these are really all just a few points that are coming out of the discussions that we have since nine a.m. this morning and so the many recommendations and practices and calls for action that we go today I welcome will take them forward when we go back to work on ensuring an important digital world for women and bridge the gaps to ensure women and girls have a successful engagement in the ICT sector and in fact to make sure that we can further promote and build on I would like to invite you once again one last time to join us at the regional development forum for Europe on the 22 and 23 May and not only do we invite you to join us in the forum itself but also to take part of our regional consultations and to submit your initiatives and commitments to advancing digital inclusion and still development so thank you once again I wish you a successful girls in a city international day today but also every day thank you so much