Enel Global Digital Solutions <Girls in Enel ICT Day>

3/5/2018

Europe, Italy, Rome, Italy

Source: Enel portal

The father of information technology was actually a mother. Her name was Ada Lovelaceand, in 19th century London, she created the first algorithm with the specific idea that it should be elaborated by a machine.

Thanks to algorithms, 200 years later, Pepper gesticulates, waves and answers, sometimes quite cheekily. Pepper is a humanoid robot and one of the stars of the Girls in ICT Day which was organised for the third year running by Enel Digital Solutions, in Rome on 3 May, and in Madrid on 11 May at the headquarters of Endesa, Enel’s Spanish subsidiary.

A double initiative that not only celebrated International Girls in ICT Day (26 April) which is supported by all the member states of the ITU (International Telecommunications Union), but also promoted the goal of encouraging young women to choose STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) professions and bridge the gender gap.

The future is STEM education

Pepper is neither male nor female: a good sign considering that the robot is a symbol of the new world of technology that awaits us; a world that the statistics suggest girls are reluctant to embrace.

“We are at the start of the fourth industrial revolution and two thirds of future jobs will be related to STEM subjects: does it make sense that half the population is precluded from this opportunity and this area of growth?” was the question asked by Carlo Bozzoli, Head of Enel’s Global Digital Solutions, as he opened the event at the Enel Auditorium in Rome.

The numbers are worrying, as Monica Parrella, coordinator of the Office for Equality and Equal Opportunity Action at the Italian Prime Minister’s Office – Department of Equal Opportunities, and Tindara Addabbo, lecturer at the Marco Biagi Department of Economics at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, reminded the audience.

“It isn’t only a problem for Italy, but it is also an Italian problem, and it is particularly Italian when you consider that Italy ranks second last in Europe, after Greece, for female employment,” explained Parrella, who added that less than half of women of a working age in Italy have a job.

A snapshot of the university population is sufficient to demonstrate the gender gap: 78% of students in the humanities faculties are female, as are 68% of students in medicine related disciplines (the so-called “Grey’s Anatomy syndrome”) and 56% in social sciences, compared to only 37% of those studying the sciences. This gap has actually increased in recent years: today, just 13% of the ICT workforce in Italy are women.

The situation is not much better in Spain: while one job in eight will be in ICT by 2025, only 30% of STEM faculty students and 3% of STEM graduates are women. These numbers, cited by Andrea Lo Faso, Human Resources and Organisation Manager for Iberia, are surprising because they contradict exam and test results where girls perform better than boys. “This is proof that that the real problem is gender prejudice: to paraphrase Einstein, it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice.”

It is not simply a problem of career opportunity. The lack of graduates, and consequently, of career professionals, in technical and scientific sectors constitutes an enormous loss of wealth. “If as many women were employed in ICT as men, the European GDP would increase by €9 billion annually,” explained Addabbo, while Bozzoli mentioned that there are 850,000 unfulfilled vacancies in Europe, with companies searching for skill sets that they are not finding.