Need to ensure that women in tech not only find voice but make way for other women: Irani

NEW DELHI: "One of the greatest challenges we see for female scientific minds is their transition from technological educational institutions to positions of research," said Smriti Irani, Minister for Women and Child Development, Govt of India.

Speaking at the event, "Women in Tech: Charging New Frontiers, Breaking Gender Stereotypes", jointly organised by FICCI and FLO's Empowering the Greater50% initiative and the Embassy of Spain, Irani highlighted the need for making research more lucrative. "Science is not a man's game, not a women's game; it is everybody's game," she said.

The event marked the launch of the FICCI Women in Science and Entrepreneurship (WISE) Council, which aims to create mentorship for the females starting from the schools, advocate for women on Board positions, and anchor industry and investment linkages for women entrepreneurs. Alongside the launch, an online pledge campaign that already had 130 corporate signatories urged corporates to encourage women in STEM.

In addition, the event also saw the launch of the "Donate a Laptop" campaign for girl students in need of digital access.

Speaking on occasion, She alluded to the inherent biases in artificial intelligence and machine learning and said that while science does not come with a bias, data does. "Training data that is available to us thus far societally, is a data that positions primely men", she said, and added, "when we use these training data subsets to predict an outcome, we need to recognise, will we end up predicting the past, than predicting the future".