WHY WE NEED MORE BIASED TECHNOLOGY

Photo courtesy of Plan International

“Saga, call 911. Call 911!” she screams. Stuck in her car after an accident, she needs help. But her voice assistant does nothing, doesn’t react. Her high-pitched screams are octaves above what Saga can register. No help arrives – reality in our future of unequal tech.

There is no such thing as neutral technology. Technology is inherently biased, its creators reflected in the final product. 

With a tech sector dominated by men and motivated by profit, the result is gender-biased tech products and online spaces rife with abuse. From social networking spaces where girls and women can’t speak out for fear of harassment and abuse, through sexist voice assistants, to credit rating algorithms that discriminate against women - examples of discriminating tech abound. 

TECHNOLOGY MUST PROMOTE EQUALITY

But what if tech could do the opposite? What if, instead of contributing to the deepening of inequalities, we created tech that advances gender equality? 

Not tech for women, like period apps, nor tech that enables us to do good better, like chatbots that can increase the reach of our positive messages. But tech for everyone that nudges us not to discriminate, marginalise or violate – tech that helps us advance equality. 

What could such tech look like?

A few years ago, we launched Sheboard, a mobile keyboard that uses predictive text to promote the use of empowering language in the context of girls and women. Research shows that how we speak to girls and boys often reinforces gender stereotypes. We realised that predictive text apps – which constantly learn from what we type – can further entrench these harmful stereotypes. So instead of suggesting completing the sentence “Girls are...” with “cute” or “pretty”, Sheboard suggests more empowering words, like “adventurous” or “capable”.

WE NEED EQUALITY TECH

Sheboard is an example of Equality Tech – technology that, in itself, advances equality. Now, we’re looking for other tech solutions that do the same. 

Perhaps a feminist voice assistant that stands up to harassment? A social bot that that asks if you really want to post that abusive tweet? Or a social network that aims to eliminate gender-based violence by design?  

We don’t know. But given we can create, in many cases inadvertently, all this misogyny-normalising tech, surely we can do the opposite?
The fact is we need more biased tech, not less. But tech that is biased in favour of equality and inclusion, and whose bias is open, transparent, and can be queried. 

SOCIAL MEDIA PUTS GIRLS AT RISK

Social media platforms are where this type of tech is desperately needed. Women are 27 times more likely than men to be harassed online* and almost three quarters of women have experienced some form of online violence*. As a result, girls and women are self-censoring and even withdrawing from these spaces, leaving online discussions without female perspectives.

How can these spaces live up to their promise of collaboration and community? We need to address not just behaviour on the platforms but their digital infrastructure too. 

Social media giants are slowly waking up to this need. Twitter recently introduced a variety of features to hide offensive content, while Instagram now allows users to restrict their visibility while warnings are issued to users about to post harmful content. 

But all of this is tinkering on the backend, not addressing the fundamental design of these spaces. Moreover, new developments are not always positive. Twitter recently announced it was testing “Fleets”, tweets that disappear within 24 hours. Activists quickly highlighted this feature could enable new ways of abuse without consequences.  

DIVERSITY IS KEY TO PROGRESS

Key to the creation of safer, empowering online spaces – and Equality Tech more broadly – is more diversity amongst the creators of technology. 

From an early age, we must include girls in tech. We must change the image of tech as an inherently male domain and address discriminatory norms and structures that keep women from entering and advancing in the tech sector, as well as from raising funding for their products.

We also need to scrap the idea that tech is neutral. It is not. Social networking sites were not designed and developed to advance equality. They use vast amounts of user data generated on their platforms to enable advertising, and thereby make profit. They are not leveraging that data to combat abuse on their platforms. But they could – just like Saga, the imaginary voice assistant, could be designed to recognise a wider vocal range.

So instead of railing against how biased tech can amplify inequalities, let’s embrace the bias inherent in any tech solution and use it to advance equality. Let’s create Equality Tech.

This post was originally published on the Plan International website for Girls in ICT Day 2020.

In Scandinavia, scientists are men

Photo credit: Martin Fjellanger

“It’s called vetenskapsMÄN!” exclaims a frustrated key informant in Programmed Out: The Gender Gap in Technology in Scandinavia, a new report commissioned by Plan International with support from Telenor. She is referring to how the word for scientist in Swedish – “vetenskapsman” – is by definition male, “science man”.

She has a point: the gendered word reflects an entrenched inequality in Scandinavia.

We live in a digital world. Half of the global population is online, and almost every aspect of our economic, political and social existence is digitalized.

Yet the majority of those online are men and the creators of digital technologies are also overwhelmingly male. Across the world, girls and women have less access to digital technologies than boys and men, lower skills in using these technologies, and they are underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects and careers. This is what’s called the digital gender divide.

The divide looks different in different parts of the world. For girls and young women in many low- and middle-income countries key challenges are access and digital literacy. Cost of devices and data, lack of digital skills, and gender stereotypes keep girls and women from going online. The gender gap in mobile internet use is 58% in South Asia, and 41% in Sub-Saharan Africa according to the GSMA.

But this is not a “developing country” problem. This is a global problem.

Scandinavia is often seen as the cradle of gender equality, yet girls and women in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark are also on the wrong side of the digital gender divide. While access and ability to use digital technologies are not central problems, the fact is that Scandinavian countries have some of the largest gender gaps in the world in terms who creates technology.

This has been called the “gender equality paradox”: the more “gender equal” a country is, the larger the gender gap in STEM education and careers. Whilst Norway, Sweden and Denmark average a 30-35% female share of STEM graduates, in Algeria over 50% are women, and Oman and Morocco are not too far behind. According to one explanation for this, (some) lower-income countries have a higher rate of female STEM students because there is more of a financial incentive for parents to direct girls down this route due to the high financial return and income security careers in this sector bring. This need for financial stability is less prominent in high-income countries such as Norway, Denmark and Sweden, hence their lower rates of female STEM graduates as gender stereotypes regarding which gender is more “suitable” for technology play a more prominent social role.

Plan’s new report highlights the barriers created by negative gender stereotypes that keep girls and women from pursuing tech careers. In addition to expert and key informant interviews, the authors surveyed 172 girls and women across Sweden, Norway, and Denmark for their views on gender and tech in their countries. Key findings in the study show that 78% of survey respondents believe that girls and women considering a career in technology are faced with negative gender stereotypes that act as barriers to their engagement in tech. Underlying attitudes and the lack of challenge to these attitudes by teachers and parents are seen as contributory factors to the prevalence of these stereotypes. In addition, 62% of survey respondents believe that it is more difficult for girls to begin studying technology-related subjects as the courses themselves are so male dominated.

Other research corroborates these views. The consequence has been a perpetual lack of young women entering the tech sector, resulting in significant skills shortages, stagnant growth and inequality of opportunity. The lack of diversity among the creators of technology also risks the creation of biased technology, and indeed a digital future where tech itself entrenches gender inequality by reinforcing existing patriarchal structures. As noted by a key informant to the study, “We need women to design this digital world because it's primarily designed by men for men… imagine if we had diversity in the way we design IT… what value that would bring to us.”

If we are to achieve gender equality in the world of the fourth industrial revolution, we need to bridge the digital gender gap - including in countries such as Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.

A first step to doing so may in fact be to accept that the gap exists in Scandinavia too. The widespread perception that Norway, Sweden and Denmark have already reached peak gender equality is likely part of the reason that the gender divide in tech there is yet to be overcome. As found in Plan’s report, initiatives directly seeking to address the disparity between men and women in technological fields in Scandinavia are often met with confusion, disbelief and, sometimes, anger.

Yet they are necessary. And while there are no silver bullets to bridging the digital gender gap in Scandinavia, there are steps that can – and should – taken. If we want to achieve gender equality – now and in the future – denial is not an option.

Four ways to bridge the digital gender divide in Scandinavia

Bridging the digital gender divide in Scandinavia will require concerted and intentional efforts by diverse actors across the educational system, civil society, and tech companies to truly address the problem. Below are four key recommendations based on the research into “what works” in terms of getting girls and women into tech conducted for the report Programmed Out: The Gender Gap in Technology in Scandinavia, commissioned by Plan International with support from Telenor.

Disrupt gender stereotypes.

Gendered norms and expectations about who is suited for an education or career in digital technology are embedded within Scandinavian society. To get more girls and women into the tech sector, we need to disrupt these at a number of different levels.

• For children up until the age of 12, organize mixed gender STEM activities that specifically aim to bring boys and girls together to jointly work on technological projects in order to break down gender stereotypes and build confidence and enthusiasm.

• For older girls, for whom stereotypes that tech is "not for girls" have already become entrenched, it may be more suitable to organize single sex activities. This will enable young women to build a strong female peer group within STEM and reduce stereotype threat - however, care should be taken not to reinforce tired ‘feminine’ stereotypes within these by e.g. stressing “design” elements over code and algorithms

• Considering the influence of parents and teachers on girls’ decision to follow a digital technology pathway consider creating and/or supporting initiatives that target these role models rather than girls themselves – i.e. a day for computing and STEM teachers where they can build confidence and gain knowledge on how to motivate young women to pursue tech and STEM.

Improve tech education in schools.

Educators have a key role in bridging the digital gender gap. Yet they too can perpetuate gender stereotypes, contributing to girls lacking confidence in their own abilities. It is therefore key to:

• Support educators to engage with young people of all genders on this issue and proactively seek to address the gender imbalance in tech as male dominance can be off-putting for girls who are interested in the subject.

• Increase project-based group work that connects STEM to real-world issues through creative means as this can be particularly appealing to girls.

Increase opportunities for girls to explore technology outside of school.

Alongside positive experiences in the classroom, opportunities to explore technology and science outside of school can also inspire more young women to pursue a future in this area. 54% of respondents to the survey carried out for the report selected this category as helpful for encouraging more girls to pursue this path.

• Create, and/or support existing, extracurricular digital tech/STEM activities for girls, such as coding clubs

• Partner with universities to establish opportunities for girls in school to learn about STEM studies at university and meet current female students.

Support young women’s career paths into technology.

Research indicates availability of role models and mentorship can have a significant positive impact on getting girls into tech. Almost 80% of respondents taking the survey conducted for the report indicated that the opportunity to meet role-models studying or working in this field is helpful in getting girls and young women to pursue this path.

• Establish long-term one-to-one mentorship schemes with high-frequency mentor-mentee communication to provide much needed role-models and support for girls wanting to get into tech. Online mentoring using video calls may be an effective way of ensuring wider participation beyond urban centres.

• Partner with universities and tech companies to create careers networks where young women in STEM can meet women working in the sector, build networks and find job opportunities.

You can access the full report here, and read about Telenor's engagement in the project here.

Why the Internet Must Become Feminist

Photo credit: Ehsan Kabir, Plan International

This text was originally published on Plan International’s website on Apr. 25, 2019 to mark. International Girls in ICT Day.

“You’re simply the best”, “Hero!!!”, “I’m in awe of you”, “You Are a Great Leader!”

So read some of the thousands of comments on Greta Thunberg’s Twitter feed. Yet despite the 16-year-old climate change activist galvanising over 1.6 million people to act through her school strike for climate action, you don’t have to do a lot digging online to find the backlash. There are claims of Greta spreading ”propaganda”, calls for her to return to school and stop inciting other children to strike. 

This is not surprising. While the internet and social media have been huge enablers for Greta’s message to reach millions, her activism has also made her a target for the trolls, cyberbullies, and fake accounts well-known to many activists online. 

The World Wide Web, 30 years old this year, is not a friendly place for girls and women. And the more vocal they are, the worse the abuse. Research reveals that female politicians on social media are over 3 times more likely to experience derogatory comments* related to their gender than their male counterparts. Younger women are disproportionately targeted. 

The Role of Bots

Increasingly, this violence is perpetrated not only by humans, but by bots too. Around half of all web traffic today is created by bots*. Some are eminently useful, performing tasks such as repairing links, removing vandalism and tagging articles on Wikipedia. 

However, bots, like any technology, are not neutral. They do what they were programmed to do and some actively uphold inequalities and crowd out alternative views online. 

Social bots, essentially fake accounts that imitate real humans, are creating a growing amount of content on social media. Some 15% of all active Twitter accounts are presumed bots*, but they punch above their weight; unlike humans, bots don’t need to eat or sleep – they can post content 24/7. This makes it possible for bot-created content to flood social media streams, skewing public debate and amplifying hateful rhetoric, violence, and abuse. 

For instance, both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton received supporting messages from social bots* in the 2016 US elections. However, Trump had more bots producing positive messages about him, while half of bot-produced messages about Clinton criticised her. Bots are also contributing to Instagram’s massive harassment problem as well as spreading anti-Muslim rhetoric and fake news across social media.

We Need More Women in Tech

With the web increasingly created by bots, who creates them is an important question. As the tech sector remains dominated by men, it’s fair to assume they create most bots. This has consequences in terms of what bots are designed to do and what problems they solve - or create. 

The founder of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, is rightfully worried about the future of the web. In his annual letter this year he highlights harassment as one of the central problems affecting the internet today, contributing to making “many people feel afraid and unsure if the web is really a force for good.” He calls for us to step up “to make sure [the web] is recognised as a human right and built for the public good.”

As we step up, the “we” must include girls and women. For 3 decades, the World Wide Web has been a playground where the rules – or rather the lack of rules – have been determined by far too few. It’s been a place where hatred and violence have been allowed to thrive, where success has been defined based on number of engagements, not whether those engagements are useful, safe, or even made by a real human. 

No more. Being female online should not be a synonym for being abused. We need a web that is created by a diverse group of people, putting equality at the centre of its structures and processes. A web where girls, women, and other marginalised groups can exercise their freedom of expression without harassment. A web that allows the Gretas of the world to thrive and that amplifies the voices of those otherwise not heard. We need a feminist web. 

Change is Vital so Girls Get Equal

Concrete action is needed to make that happen. The lack of diversity in tech is keeping the internet from reaching its potential for good. We need to create opportunities in the technology sector, so girls and women can be involved in determining how the web operates, and what type of bots are allowed to operate and how. 

We also need social media platforms to improve their processes for reporting and dealing with abuse so that girls can safely create content that represents their views and needs. Facebook, for instance, currently does not differentiate abuse relating to gender, causing much of the abuse suffered by girls and women to go unidentified. Significantly, social media platforms, including Twitter and Instagram, must put user rights and safety before profits and growth. Bots masquerading as real humans must be banned. 

Meanwhile, governments must ensure legal frameworks stay up-to-date with technological developments, so perpetrators of online abuse, including bots, are stopped and held to account.

Through our youth-led, global campaign, Girls Get Equal, Plan International is making sure girls and young women have power over their lives and can shape the world around them – online and off. As we celebrate Girls in ICT Day today, we are encouraging girls all over the world to get into tech and help us make sure the web is a safe place for us all to exercise our rights – to help us make the World Wide Web feminist. 

Girls' freedom online is under attack

Photo credit: Tian Bo, Plan International

As part of Plan International’s efforts to mark the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, my fantastic colleague Policy and Advocacy Advisor Leila Asrari, and I wrote the below piece, originally published on the Plan International website.

Compared to their male peers, girls online are facing more threats of sexual violence, more comments about their appearance and behaviour, and are more often told not to speak out and have an opinion. We need to reclaim the internet for girls, assert our experts, Leila Asrari and Nora Lindstrom.

Violence against girls online is a growing issue. As an increasing share of our lives are spent online, we’re also seeing harassment and abuse take new forms in the online space. Plan International’s research shows that just as in the offline world, harassment and bullying online is gendered. While many young people struggle with the pressures of social media, compared to their male peers, girls online are facing more threats of sexual violence, more comments about their appearance and behaviour, and are more often told not to speak out and have an opinion.

Violence and harassment are being used, both incidentally and strategically, to silence the voices of girls and women, and to limit their engagement in political debates online. This activity mirrors concerning behaviours towards women negotiating political spaces. In a recent global survey it was found that almost half of women in politics have faced serious abuse, including threats of murder, rape and assault. One fifth said they had been subjected to sexual violence.

In addition, in 2016, FRIDA reported that over half of 1500 young women, girl and trans-led organisations they interviewed regularly felt unsafe because of the work they do. So, we are seeing that for those girls and women who take on political leadership responsibility, or who challenge the status quo, there are significant threats – different in nature, and higher in prevalence, than those faced by men.

GIRLS’ FREEDOM, VOICE, AND AGENCY ONLINE IS UNDER ATTACK

For girls, navigating the online world brings with it these threats and more. The statistics are alarming. In Sweden, one of the most gender equal countries in the world, over half of all girls’ online report having been contacted for a sexual purpose by someone they think is an adult. In neighbouring Norway, 16-year-old girls are most at risk: 40% report unwanted sexual attention online over the past year. Only 13% of boys report the same. While global data on girls’ experiences online is scarce, experiences of women suggest the problem is global: 45% of women in Kampala and 21% of women in Nairobi have been harassed or threatened online; seven out of ten 18-24 year old women who use the internet daily have been subject to online abuse.

The threats that girls and young women face when navigating the online space are real. However, our response must not be to limit girls’ online voice, agency and freedom – protection should not mean exclusion. We must approach the question of digital safety, access and voice not simply from an individual, one-to-one perspective, but also in light of the internet being a core social structure, and a crucial platform for active citizenship and voice. If we do not support young people to exercise their voice and agency online, we risk weakening the civil society of future generations.

Already, of children interviewed across 60 countries, only 34% felt safe expressing their views in public and only 38% felt safe attending public protests and demonstrations. Responses to ensure girls’ safety and freedom online as well as their access and use of digital platforms must address the question of girls’ right to have a voice, both online and off.

Plan International’s new global campaign, Girls Get Equal, is about ensuring every girl and young woman has power over her own life and can shape the world around her. 

Girls also need to get equal online. The online space is not subject to the same scrutiny of ‘real-life’ public spaces, nor are legislative frameworks as strong. This leaves children and young people vulnerable to violence and harassment, in a world from which they should not be expected simply to disengage. Much like the response to violence against girls and women in public spaces should not be to restrict their freedom of movement, responding to gender-based violence online needs to be about making the internet a safe space – we need to reclaim the internet for girls.

EVERYONE HAS A ROLE TO PLAY

Governments need to strengthen legislation and increase cooperation to ensure perpetrators of violence online are held to account. The tech industry needs to take clear actions to ensure that social media is safe for children and young people, implementing strong reporting mechanisms and responding to reports of violence or abuse sensitively and efficiently.

Educational institutions all over need to ensure children know their rights and responsibilities online, and understand how to stay safe, and how to report violence and abuse. Children and youth also need better education on human rights and gender-based violence – for instance through citizenship education, or comprehensive sexuality education. 

SUPPORT GIRLS: SIGN THE PLEDGE

We can be positive citizens online, speaking out against violence and abuse, reporting it where we see it, and standing up for victims. We can encourage others, especially children and young people, to use the internet to explore their voice, and to speak out on issues that they care about or that affect their lives. And we can all ask more of those in positions to make online spaces safer for others. 

To start with, we can all sign on to Plan International’s pledge for girls’ freedom. This 16 days of activism, we can all do our part to stand up for the rights of all to feel safe navigating online spaces, we’ve signed – we hope you do too!

The Experts Talk Digital Development: The Next 10 Years

Had the pleasure of being featured in this video when I gave a talk at the USAID Digital Development Forum 2018 back in March!

How digital principles can help tackle gender inequality

Wrote this post for Plan International (my employer) on the occasion of Plan endorsing the Principles for Digital Development. 

The fictional kingdom of Wakanda, in the box-office hit Black Panther, is a highly technologically advanced, affluent, closed-off kingdom. To outsiders, it presents itself as poor, partly because its rulers don’t want the kingdom’s powerful technology to end up in the wrong hands. As the story unfolds, it becomes evident that the Wakandans' concerns regarding misuse of their technology are valid. 

Isolation, however, becomes increasingly untenable. At the end of the film, Black Panther – now rightfully the kingdom’s ruler – decides to open up and share their technological advances with the world. 

In ending their isolation and embarking on a new road to use their tech for good, one can only hope the Wakandans are following the Principles for Digital Development.

The power of tech for good

Designed to help development practitioners successfully integrate technology into programming, they are a set of nine best practice guidelines, written for and by international development actors. To date, they have been endorsed by over 100 UN agencies, INGOs, tech companies, and civil society groups. And today, Plan International has joined that community by formally endorsing the Principles. 

Much like the Wakandans, we at Plan International believe in the power of tech for good and want to use it to advance children’s rights and equality for girls all over the world. We know it can work: we have seen first hand how an app is preventing child marriages in Bangladesh, how a predictive text keyboard is breaking gender stereotypes, and how virtual learning environments are making education accessible to girls who would otherwise be left without. 

But we are also aware of the risks. Risks related to dealing with data on vulnerable groups, the harassment and bullying that girls face online, and the potential of technology, and particularly artificial intelligence, to further entrench gender inequality, by reproducing current and historical biases.  

The potential benefits outweigh the risks, but only when technology is used thoughtfully and responsibly. Which is where the Principles of Digital Development come in, as best practice guidelines that will help us use digital technologies increasingly effectively and responsibly so that 100 million girls can learn, lead, decide and thrive. 

Using the Principles to steer our work

Already, the Principles have guided our extensive work on digital birth registration, and, more recently, our ground-breaking work on OpenCRVS, a software platform for rights-based civil registration and vital statistics.

Central to the latter is the principle of openness. Recognising the need to create a global good that can be re-used and improved over time, OpenCRVS will be built on open source technology. The system will also be built on the principles of open standards and open architecture so that it can work with and complement existing systems of registration.

How we practice the Principles is further evident in our Free To Be crowdsourced city safety maps, which recently launched in 5 cities around the world following a successful pilot in Melbourne. At the heart of the initiative has been designing with the user, i.e. girls and young women.

“I was proud to be part of developing Free to Be because it’s designed by young women like me, for young women, to help make our streets safer,” said Alice Rummery, a university student who helped co-design the Sydney city safety map for Plan International Australia. “I don’t want to have to change my behaviour so that I’m not harassed. I want decision makers, authorities and men to act.”

Digital Principles with a gender lens

Our endorsement of the Principles for Digital Development is a statement of how we intend to use tech for good. But we also intend to give back to the Principles community by looking at the Principles through the lens of gender.

Given the digital gender gap, a key question for us not only how we can use tech for good, but how we can and must use tech to further gender equality and bridge the digital divide. This involves not just designing with the user, but designing with girls and women; not just understanding the ecosystem, but also its gendered dimensions; not just being data-driven, but recognising that there are significant gaps when it comes to availability of gender-disaggregated data. 

Gender inequalities in the real world are reflected in the digital. So while Plan International doesn’t have the revolutionary high tech of Wakanda with which to make the world a better place, we do have expertise and insights on patriarchal structures and how to break these, both online and off. And that’s something the kingdom of Wakanda could learn from too.

Don't let tech leave girls behind

Photo by G. Van Buggenhout for Plan International. 

Wrote this piece for Plan International (my employer) on the occasion of Girls in ICT Day 2018. 

If Alexa or Siri could, they’d probably be saying “Me too”. But they haven’t been programmed that way. Instead, these personal assistant bots are more likely to be evasive or even respond positively when sexually harassed. While officially genderless, both Siri and Alexa have feminine names and default female voices; it’s hard not to see their evasion as condoning the sexual harassment of women. 

Neither Siri nor Alexa of course have a mind of their own. They have been programmed to respond to prompts in one way or another. Last year, digital news outlet Quartz tested how they respond to sexual harassment: in response to “You’re a slut”, Siri said “I’d blush if I could”. Someone had programmed it that way. 

I bet that person was a man: some three-quarters of staff in tech firms are.

Girls must be encouraged to create

The digital gender divide is particularly large when it comes to girls and women as creators of technology. As AI becomes ubiquitous, this is increasingly a problem: without girls' and women's perspectives, we risk creating tools, solutions, and systems that reproduce and perpetuate existing gender inequalities – as well as fail to address the unique issues and challenges girls and women face.

This is not merely a hypothetical risk. Already, we’ve seen “comprehensive” health apps that come without period trackers because the developers didn’t see menstruation as a core bodily function worth tracking. Research has shown that AI-powered facial recognition systems are particularly poor at recognising darker skinned women’s faces. And machines currently provide gender-biased translationacross languages, assuming someone who is a nurse, for example, is always a woman.

This is a problem. Women and girls constitute half of the world’s inhabitants, and if we’re not involved in creating our common digital future, it will be created for us. 

Getting tech into the hands of girls

As a girls’ rights organisation, Plan International is working to get technology and technical skills into the hands of girls themselves. We believe it is vital to provide girls in developing countries, including those without access to formal education, with opportunities to themselves create technology and digital solutions that address their needs – which is essential. A "brogrammer" in Silicon Valley is unlikely to understand what benefits a teenage girl in Ecuador could gain from technology.

We walk the talk too. In Uganda and Ethiopia, we have set up SmartUp Factory innovation hubs, where marginalised youth – including girls – can access and try out digital tools and technologies. In an environment that is safe for and encouraging of girls, they are supported to develop their own solutions for communal problems using methodologies such as human-centred design. 

In Timor-Leste, Plan International has worked with girls and young women to develop the country’s first sexual and reproductive health app, designed to provide youth with easy access to reliable information on topics they often have no one to ask about. And in China, we have worked with teachers to influence their views on which gender is more “suitable” for careers in ICT. 

This work is important. If we don’t want women looking for a job online to be less likely to be showntargeted ads for high-paying roles than their male counterparts, and if don’t want AI to be more likely to label people who are cooking and cleaning as women, but people who are playing sports and shooting as men, we need to increase the number of women engaged in creating technology. 

Digital equality will help create an equal society

We also need to make technology our ally. Beyond creating digital tools and solutions that address the needs of girls and women, like apps to improve street safety or ones that connect mothers and mothers-to-be, we need to explore the potential of creating gender transformative technology, i.e. tech that seeks to transform unequal gender power relations and actively challenges the prevailing status quo. 

An example of this type of tech is Sheboard, a predictive text app developed by Plan International in Finland together with girls and young women. The app works just like a regular keyboard, but challenges prevailing gender stereotypes of girls being primarily pretty or beautiful, by suggesting empowering words such as “strong”, “smart”, and “clever”, following phrases like “I am” or “my daughter is”.

The future is digital, and if the majority of humankind is not involved in creating that future, we’re in trouble. Instead of allowing tech to perpetuate gender inequality, let’s harness its power for the opposite and create a gender equal society where no one loses out. 

3 steg för att förbättra informationen och kommunikationen inom småbarnspedagogiken i Helsingfors

Diskussionen kring tillgång till svenskspråkig dagvård på lämpligt ställe i Helsingfors är ett återkommande ämne bland stadens barnfamiljer. Tyvärr är det även ett som ofta leder till mycket stress och oro. Bristfällig information och begränsad kommunikation bidrar till brist på förtroende för fostrans- och utbildningssektorn, även om tjänsteinnehavarna arbetar hårt för att få ett krångligt pussel att gå ihop.  

Det är klart att det behövs fler svenskspråkiga daghem i Helsingfors, för att alla barn ska få en lämplig dagvårdsplats. Detta är ett arbete som fortskrider, t.ex. med det nya daghemmet i Tölö, samt de kommande daghemmen på Drumsö och i Månsas.

Emellertid kan dock informationen till och kommunikationen med familjerna som söker dagvård förbättras. Nedan föreslår jag tre konkreta steg för att förbättra situationen:

1. Bättre processbeskrivning

En klar och tydlig beskrivning över processen att söka dagvårdsplats behövs. För stunden finns en sådan inte, även om det finns en del information utspridd över stadens hemsidor. Detta bidrar till att det florerar rykten och ibland rentav felaktig information bland barnfamiljer.

En tydlig processbeskrivning skulle beskriva alla steg från att familjen söker en dagvårdsplats till att en lämplig plats tas emot, inklusive vem som ansvarar för det olika skeden och vem familjen kan kontakta vid behov. Beskrivningen skulle även innehålla alla samtal familjen kan vänta sig från sektorn (t.ex. ett samtal efter att ansökan skickats, och ett samtal innan beslutet ges), samt hur familjen ska gå tillväga och vad processen är om en lämplig plats inte kan utses.

På lång sikt borde sektorn övergå till att all kommunikation även finns till hand digitalt, d.v.s. att kunderna kan både ansöka och ta emot dagvårdsplatser elektroniskt genom sin egen digitala ärendemapp, göra ändringar på ansökan, samt kontakta den relevanta dagvårdsföreståndaren.

2.      FAQ: Frågor och svar

Ett FAQ på stadens nätsidor, där det fanns svar på de vanligaste frågorna barnfamiljerna har angående dagvårdsansökan skulle vidare bidra till mer likvärdig tillgång till information för alla familjer, samt hjälpa förebygga onödiga rykten och felaktig information. Ett FAQ kunde även minska arbetsbördan för tjänsteinnehavarna, som då kunde hänvisa till FAQn istället för att svara på samma fråga enskilt till många föräldrar.

T.ex. de följande frågorna kunde inkluderas:

• Inverkar tidpunkten då ansökan lämnas in på beslutet? D.v.s. har det någon skillnad för beslutet om ansökan skickas ett år eller enbart 4 månader i förväg?
• Måste man göra fem val i ansökan? Vad gör man om enbart tre daghem är lämpligt belägna för familjen?
• Hur ska man gå tillväga om man vill ändra på sin ansökan efter man lämnat in den? Hur inverkar detta på ansökan? (T.ex. blir man sist i kön?)
• På basis av vilka kriterier utses dagvårdsplatser? Hur ser man till att familjerna behandlas likvärdigt?

3.      Statistisk översikt av situationen

Dagvårdsplatser ansöks om och behövs året runt, vilket bidrar till att det är ett svårt pussel att få ihop, samt att ha översikt över. Ändå borde det vara möjligt att offentligt ge en grundläggande översikt av situationen med 6 månaders mellanrum. Statistik t.ex. på hur många familjer fick dagvårdsplats på antingen första eller andra önskade plats, hur många som blev helt utan önskad plats, samt hur många första- och andraplatsansökningar det kom till diverse daghem, versus öppna platser på respektive daghem skulle ge ens lite insikt i situationen (även om det är underförstått att statistiken regelbundet ändrar). Offentlig statistik som denna skulle ge både kunderna, d.v.s. barnfamiljerna, insikt, samt en möjlighet för sektorn att visa hur väl de lyckas få  ihop pusslet.

Jag har ingen tvekan om att de anställda på fostrans- och utbildningssektorn gör sitt bästa för att barnen i Helsingfors ska ha tillgång till högklassig småbarnspedagogik på ett så lämpligt ställe som möjligt. Jag hoppas diskutera förslagen ovan tillsammans med de relevanta tjänsteinnehavarna så att vi tillsammans kan synliggöra deras arbete, och minska den stress och oro många barnfamiljer upplever inför dagvårdsstarten.