Women's role in technology discussed in Finnish embassy webinar

The Embassy of Finland in Korea hosts the webinar "Women in Tech ― Towards a Success Story of Gender Equality," highlighting women's role and importance of gender equality in technology, April 28. Captured from YouTube

By Kwon Mee-yoo

The Embassy of Finland in Korea held a webinar highlighting women's roles and the importance of gender equality in technology, Wednesday.

Titled "Women in Tech ― Towards a Success Story of Gender Equality," the webinar was co-hosted with the Korean Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and discussed inclusivity of women in the tech sector from different angles, including women in the Fourth Industrial Revolution both as creators and users of technology.

“It is essential to bridge the gender gaps of digitalization and technological development. I sincerely believe that these topics are at the heart of the gender equality, and more broadly, necessary elements of successful modern societies and companies,” Finnish Ambassador to Korea Pekka Metso, who moderated the webinar, said.

Finland and Korea signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the field of gender equality in 2019 when President Moon Jae-in visited Finland. The webinar was part of both countries' efforts to promote gender equality. The Finnish Embassy will also offer coding classes to girls and women in collaboration with Hanyang University Software Center from this month.

“As social distancing has become a daily practice in this COVID-19 era, technologies and innovations, in particular digital technology, are instrumental in maintaining our daily lives such as schoolwork and work life. At the same time the pandemic crisis is also revealing the negative impact of technology,” Minister of Gender Equality and Family Chung Young-ai said in an opening speech.

“To ensure that technology and innovation contribute not to discrimination but to equality, it's important to incorporate gender perspectives into technology and innovation and increased diversity in the technology industry, including women's participation in the sector … I hope we can take an important step in enhanced gender equality in this webinar through the Korea-Finland cooperation,” Chung added.

Emma Winiecki, communications manager at U.N. Women Finland, talked about why women's equal participation as creators and users of technology was a prerequisite for sustainable development.

Winiecki shared Finnish examples of breaking the barriers such as familiarizing girls with technology and helping them grow confident in their skills and abilities. Women Code, run by the Finnish Software and E-business Association and its member companies, is a free coding workshop program for women and girls.

Winiecki also mentioned why the technology sector needs women to thrive.

"Technology is still predominantly created by men and often for men. And that means our technology is biased. AI programs are better at recognizing male faces and voices than female ones because AI software analyzes information online from decades and decades of biases and is replicating those biases," she said.

"The more inclusive and diverse tech people are, the more inclusive and diverse the solutions are. Different people from different backgrounds creating technology and tech solutions, different perspectives, needs and priorities are included."

Choi Moon-jeong, a KAIST professor who leads the Aging and Technology Policy Lab, discussed the Korean situation in terms of “gendered technology.”

"When we think about digitization and gender equality, it's very important to think about how society and social structures have changed and how social benefits are distributed," Choi said.

She brought up the issue of AI chatbot “Lee Luda” which was canceled after three weeks in service earlier this year for its sexist and homophobic remarks.

"To me, this is like a spear and a shield. There's always the good kind of will and then people try to abuse it. It's a very important moment and we need to build a more gender-equal system. Challenge is opportunity."

Johanna Pystynen, CEO of Finnish digital life coaching service provider LaaS Company, introduced how the company provides an internal marketplace platform to provide support and services for people's needs.

"Employees are the ones who choose their own support. In this way, the whole idea of how leadership is reversed, not pushing everything down from the leadership level guessing what people would need and believing that those decisions are right. Instead, we are all the time exploring what people need today," Pystynen said.

She explained how evaluation data helps narrowing down the services.

"We will get data about what is working and can dive deeper to see which service is better for women, compared to men, and which service is working better with millennials compared to the people going to retire soon. So in this way, we actually understand what kind of services we should offer to different groups," Pystynen said.

Lee Hyun-seung, co-founder of digital agency TELEPASEE and co-managing director of global non-profit organization Girls in Tech's Korea chapter, presented her work toward empowerment of women in technology.

"Advances in the tech industry helped establish a culture for startups and new businesses. These startups brought a new environment for investment, and funding took place. Amid the growing excitement for new opportunities, when we look at the numbers, there is room for improvement for women," Lee said.

Organizations like Girls in Tech are sought after around the world to raise awareness on technology careers, and to increase the visibility of role models and mentors.

"We should work together to encourage women's continued economic participation. Korea's technology has become prevalent and recognized around the world and yet Korea's gender pay gap is the highest among the OECD countries. In Girls in Tech, we say it's time to close that gap,” Lee said.