On Tuesday, the 20th of September, Anja Moestl, as a representative of our accilium women, had the pleasure to attend the Forbes Women’s Summit in beautiful Zurich, along with many inspiring and strong women of various fields of expertise.
Forbes states that every year 111 billion lines of code are written. These codes shape not only the digital world, but also our daily lives – our language, behaviour and organizations. If we don’t raise awareness on how they are developed, we end up with biased technology.
Janina Kugel (Chief Human Resources Officer and Member of the Board, Siemens AG) shared some examples of effects of the “Brogrammer culture in the tech industry”, e.g. the no-touch soap dispensers that wouldn’t react to someone with darker skin.
It's not that the developers did this on purpose, but simply that nobody on the team had darker skin and thought of this requirement. It's a logical consequence that the data is biased, if the data underlying our coding is a representation of the homogenous world of the developers (= brogrammer culture).
„Technology is not making the world a better place. We do. It’s every manager’s responsibility to take action on creating more diverse working environments.“ - Janina Kugel
In general, the day at Park Hyatt Zurich was marked by many inspiring speeches, i.a. Anja Hendel (Director, Porsche Digital Lab) or Pamela Reif (Influencerin), followed by breakout sessions on topics like Coding or Negotiating.
One of Anja´s personal highlights was the breakout session by Wies Bratby, a former star attorney, who pointed out that the skill of negotiating is rather about having the right mindset, being in the driver seat and knowing your value.
"Working for accilium I am spoiled in terms of diversity – we are proud of our gender ratio around 30% and people from various backgrounds - which is awesome for a consultancy in the field of digitalization. Let’s make sure that we won’t need another 202 years to reach equality by stepping up for ourselves, having confidence in our abilities and empowering each other.", Anja reflecting about her experience at the Forbes Women Summit.
Keen on being part of a diverse team shaping the future of mobility? Join us and let´s show the world diverse thinking always wins: http://career.accilium.com/