The renewal of the Aldaba WIB (Women, ICT & Business) Chair allows its work to continue in promoting the ICT sector from a gender perspective. In this way, the collaborating entities will continue to foster female talent and combat the digital divide by encouraging technological vocations among young women in a field such as Computer Engineering, where women account for only 14%.
This public-private collaboration, funded with €20,000 annually by ALDABA, will continue for a further four years.
The highest representatives of both academic institutions, Carmen García Mateo (UVigo) and Ricardo Cao (UDC), highlighted the importance of this alliance as a successful model of inter-university and business cooperation. For his part, Enrique Fernández, Partner and Board Member of ALDABA, warned of the need to avoid gender bias in technological development and artificial intelligence.
The Chair, led by Alma Gómez Rodríguez, Virginia Mato and Ariana Prego, will structure its activities around three main pillars:
- Education: scholarship programmes, professional development courses, support for academic projects and attendance at conferences.
- Research: joint projects and fostering links between business innovation needs and university research groups.
- Outreach: initiatives aimed at raising awareness of the role of women in technology, targeting educational institutions and society as a whole.
Since its creation at the end of 2019, the initiative has promoted highly impactful actions such as ALDABA TIC-Camp, training programmes and studies on the gender gap in Galician degree programmes.