 Welcome to the World Radio Communication Conference 2023 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates where I'm very pleased to be joined in the studio this morning by Joanne Wilson, who is Deputy Director of the Radio Communication Bureau. Joanne, welcome to the studio. Thank you very much. Nice to be here. Now, ITU has had a number of firsts on the journey towards gender equality and mainstreaming in Italian radio communications and information communication technologies. Last year, as we know, Doreen Bogdan-Martin was the first woman elected to lead ITU, historically shattering a 157-year-old glass ceiling. Most recently, Carol Wilson, the 2023 Radio Communication Assembly chair, became the first woman to lead the significant proceedings. Prior to that, in fact, of course, we'd had Veena Owat, 20 years ago who led the World Radio Communication Conference, and we also have female chairs of WCSA. And amongst others, in the wake of this, there's also been some good news. As we know, a resolution on gender at the Radio Communication Assembly was approved. I wanted to ask you, what impact do you think this resolution will have? It could have, and hopefully will have, a big impact if the member states and sector members take to heart and implement the actions called for. Our challenge in particularly in radio communications is that we don't have enough women in the field in general. So while we work hard to try to increase their participation in our study groups and the conference and so forth, we're hindered by the fact that there are too few women in radio communications in electrical engineering and computer science, which are the fields that then lead to people participating as engineers in these conferences. So hopefully the measures that have put forth encouraging young women to go into these fields, providing scholarships and also fellowships or internships, summer jobs, you know, other measures, and even going back as far as, you know, looking at girls' education and make sure that they have what's necessary to go into engineering as a discipline. All those measures will have a big impact. So we'll see. It really depends on moving from a resolution to action. Because it's really, in principle, quite slow progress. I mean, ITU 25 years ago, I believe, passed a gender resolution in the Plenipotentiary Conference. Essentially, this is having a clear signal to member states to really to start taking notice of this. Is that how you would see it? Yeah. And some progress has been made. We are seeing more women at this conference participating as chairs, as counselors, and so forth. So we are seeing progress. We had a lot more women in our leadership roles in the preparatory process, particularly the regional level. I think all of that has been promoted by and enhanced by the efforts from the WRC 19 gender declaration. So I think that all that's positive momentum. But at the end of the day, we can't get to equity and parity in a field if only 20 some percent of the participants in the field are women. So then it's very difficult to get to 50 percent equity, quality, and so forth at the higher levels if you don't have enough at the base. Okay. Let me come back to that. You've got degrees in electrical engineering. You've worked in technology for many years. You have an important role in the United Nations Specialized Agency with a prime focus on tech. What would you say are some of the career obstacles that face women in the technological fields today? Well, let me start with changing the question a little bit of what are some of the things that helped me to get to my level and then some of the obstacles I think women face. So what helped me was I had a scholarship from Bell laboratories for undergrad. I had a fellowship for graduate school. I had summer jobs. So the things that I talk about as being essential are things that I benefited from. I even benefited from participating in a program that MIT did when I was a junior in high school introducing kids to engineering. So there's a lot of things that I benefited from that were available then that may or may not be available today. So those are the things that just sort of got me into engineering. And then career-wise, I've always benefited from being, having good mentors, executives who thought that I had some potential and were willing to create some opportunities for me. I benefited actually from the fact that I stand out in a crowd. So when I open my mouth, usually people remember who said something because I'm typically the only woman or often the only woman, often the only person of color, often the only both of those in a room. So to be honest, I actually benefited from the fact that if I open my mouth, if I have some views and I express them, if I say them in a way that people sit up and take notice, I'll probably be remembered. So in that standpoint, I'd say one of the obstacles is to not let what appear to be obstacles be obstacles. Sometimes they're actually advantages. And what sparked your interest? Was it circumstances around you? Was it something that just happened at school? Was it a teacher? Was it what actually got you on that path? Well, that program at MIT, so that was the first one. In fact, I didn't even know what MIT was, let alone to know that it was the top engineering school in the world, until I was there on campus going, oh, wow, this is pretty cool. And the only reason I went to that program was because I had a high school teacher who came into our math class one day and put an application on everyone's desk, said fill this out and give it back to me. And she didn't even explain what it was all about. And then I got a message saying, congratulations, you've been accepted into this program at MIT. We look forward to seeing you this summer. Your airline ticket will be on its way. I'm like, whoa. So I benefited most from the fact that I had an amazing mom and dad who always encouraged me and recognized I was good at math and so forth, but also made me do my homework. And when I was six still, I found my mother would contact the teacher and find out what assignments do you have while she's home sick. And then when I went to school, I had to turn in my homework even though I had been out sick. So mom was kind of pushy. Great mom. Exactly. It was good to hear. It definitely paid off in the end. I wanted to ask you, what advice would you give other women, and especially the younger generation, who are looking for opportunities to advance their careers in the radio communication sector and other technological fields? I guess probably the biggest thing is to recognize that there's nothing gender-specific about math and physics and science. If you put in the work, these exciting fields are interesting, and there's no reason why women can't be as good or better in these fields than anyone else. Because I oftentimes talk to girls who today seem to feel like they're somehow another boys are better at math than them or something like that. And I almost want to like, let me break the myth. They're not that smart. They're no smarter than you. So just go for it. And you'll see it's a great field, great opportunities, a lot of fun. If you're interested in doing big things, I spent part of my career working for NASA. And if you want to see, like, look at mission control at any international mission, and it's extremely diverse. You see men and women all ages from different backgrounds and so forth, and they are having a blast, because they are doing something together that is phenomenal. And then you see when something happens that's great, like when the James Webb Space Telescope opened, then they were finally able to get images from it. The whole room is high-fiving and so forth, because it's a tremendous achievement, and it's fun, and everybody's a part of it. That's the kind of environment that you can be in an engineering. You can do really big, really great things and have a whole lot of fun doing it. And so I tell the girls, don't let the boys have all the fun. Get in there, enjoy yourself. It's a blast. Well, I couldn't agree more. I've got two daughters, and that's exactly what I say to them, too. That's brilliant. Well, Joanne, thank you so much for sharing these wonderful insights and recollections with us, and hopefully we'll catch up with you again very soon. My pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you. And if you've enjoyed this interview, which I'm sure you will have, then do check out our other interviews on our YouTube channel, as well as podcasts on our podcast channel, SoundCloud Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts from. And for further information, why not visit our website at www.itu.int. Thanks for tuning in.