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Question 1:
What approaches and examples of good practices are available to increase Internet access and digital literacy of women and girls, including in decision-making processes on Internet public policy?
The Turin Chamber of commerce by its Women in business committee (WBC) in September 2017 established an European Network to share contents and best practices and to define some guidelines to abate gender gap in digital economy.
From November 2017 to February 2018 the Women in business committee will organize some meeting with stake holders to look for issues that will be submitted to the European Network on March 2018.
The European Network in 2018 will collect all the suggestions in a document containing proposal to submit to European Commission in order to define guidelines and project focused to abate gender gap in digital economy.
Question 2:
What approaches and examples of good practices are available to promote the access and use of ICTs by SMEs in developing and least-developed countries, particularly those owned/managed by women, in order to achieve greater participation in the digital economy?
WBC last Autumn organized two event to promote the use of ICTs by SMEs: “Skills and Innovation: a female potentials” and “Digital Innovation Driver 4 Empowerment” focused to present the opportunity to use digital instrument and to consider digital economy the opportunity to make the SMEs more competitive.
Further more, digitalization would be an opportunity for the female empowerment and for the female professional growth.
Also in 2018 WBC intend project some activities to make know entrepreneurial good practices in order to sensitize SMEs to use ICTs.
About Turin Chamber of Commerce, it helps SMEs to approach the themes of Industry 4.0, in particular digitization.
It’s in fact one of the "Digital Business Points (PID)", envisaged by the National Industry 4.0 Plan to disseminate at a local level the basic knowledge on technologies in the Industry 4.0 field.
In particular, within the framework of the Industry 4.0 national network, the PIDs of the Chambers of Commerce:
• Provide a basic understanding of the "Industry 4.0" technologies among companies, including through the organization of seminars and training courses
• Check The digital maturity of companies
• Support individual assistance and mentoring plans
• Orientate companies, for more specialized services, towards Competence Centers and Digital Innovation Hubs
• Economically support SMEs in digital transformation processes
In 2017, in 2017 the project “digital excellence” was organized: theoretical and practical training seminars, to which entrepreneurs would be able to know the best strategies to be online. At the end of each seminar, moreover, some tutors was available for further personalized sessions that help them to start a concrete digital journey. All seminars and insights was free.
Question 3:
Which are the available sources and mechanisms for measuring women's participation in the digital economy with focus on SME's and micro-enterprises?
At the moment the Chamber or commerce and WBC don’t have an instrument for measuring women’s participation in the digital economy but they would promote some analysis in order to know how many SMEs and micro enterprises use ICTs and how many women are involved in digital activities or digital functions.
The results of the analysis could be important to start a constant monitor of the situation and help to find some solution to abate the female digital gap in SMEs.
Question 4:
What measures/policies could be envisioned in order to foster the role of women as entrepreneurs and managers of SMEs, specifically in developing and least-developed countries?
In 2018, the WIC will be involved in a project aimed at identifying a model of female leadership in order to strengthen the role of women in decision-making and top management roles.
A specific part of the project will be focused to introduce the digital leader: skills, characteristics and opportunities.
We think that the digitalization is an opportunity for women and help them to empower themselves.
Question 5:
What are the gaps in addressing these challenges? How can they be addressed and what is the role of governments?
The most important gap is that there are too few girls approaching STEM subjects; consequently there are few women involved in Science and Technologies and ICTs. So that it would be important that governments take measures to encourage girls to approach the STEM subjects and support them in their training process.
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