Breaking the Bias

This year’s themes for International Women’s Day are important ones. The widely adopted #BreakTheBias theme calls for a gender-equal world, free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. The United Nations observed theme ‘Gender quality today for a sustainable tomorrow’ acknowledges that 2022 is pivotal for achieving gender equality in the context of climate change and environmental and disaster risk reduction.

Breaking the bias is an important theme for the tech sector particularly because:

  • Automation will see millions of women around the world transition between occupations by 2030, ideally into higher-skilled roles. To weather this disruption, women need to be skilled, mobile, and tech-savvy, but women face pervasive barriers.
  • If women are able to make these transitions, they could be on the path to more productive, better-paid work. If they cannot, they could face a growing wage gap or be left further behind particularly because STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) skillsets will be in enormous demand across the economy, and yet these are the industries where progress toward gender parity in work and economic participation is already slow.
  • Bias exists in data. All people involved in the data ecosystem need to be aware of bias and how to mitigate bias risk to produce gender-smart data science algorithms and data products.

Without clear pathways to leverage the opportunities of the data age, women and girls will be left further behind.

We celebrate the achievements of all the women we work with, and offer actions you can take including supporting more women to build their data literacy and capability to take advantage of the data age.

Listen to the full episode below.

Seer’s commitment to gender equality

Seer Data & Analytics aims to build a culture that is a safe and equitable place to grow for all our people. Our people are highly talented, and our team is diverse. We aim to represent the communities that we serve.

We are committed to helping improve data equity and access, and building data capability for people of all skillsets by offering thought leadership, resources and training to help remove barriers, and bridge the data divide.

If your organisation needs to build your data capabilities, don’t hesitate to get in touch

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Women-focused data assets on Seer

Celebrating the achievements and insights of amazing women

We get to work with and know some incredible women are helping forge a path to equality. Get inspired by listening to these great women, featured recently on The Foil podcast in the episodes below. The Foil is created and hosted by Seer’s Kristi Mansfield and Adam Peaston.

On International Women’s Day we celebrate by speaking with Dr Catriona Wallace who is a mother and a global leader in AI ethics and responsible AI. She sits on numerous Boards and educates leaders around the world on mitigating unintended harms from AI. Learn about the recent emergence of metaverses; immersive virtual worlds where users can interact in new and creative ways.

Tamsin Coryn-Wyllie speaks about the power and potential of place-based systems change work, and her first-hand experience in what is required to effect positive and sustainable social change at a local level for wider social benefit. Learn about what phrases like ‘systems change’ and ‘place-based’ really mean.

Dr Linda McIver describes the ways in which gender biases influence students’ attitudes towards and exposure to STEM concepts and skills. Learn about Linda’s book Raising Heretics – teaching kids to change the world, and why scepticism is so important for practising and teaching data science.

Deann Weir, a passionate advocate for gender equality and access for all, Deanne discusses the opportunities of emerging new technologies. Learn about big tech, anti-trust, and the policy framework in Australia and around the world, and how it is now playing out with policymakers.

Natalie Egleton speaks about the role of data to change the authorising environment and put the power back into the hands of local groups to get a seat at the decision-making table. Learn about real impacts of multiple crises on social capital, and why the health of rural and regional communities should matter to us all.

Paola Oliva-Altamirano shares her insights into data science for benefit of society, and achieving better efficiency through transparency within the grants sector. Learn about Paola’s groundbreaking classification model of grant funding in Australia, the CLASSIEfier tool which is used extensively by the Not For Profit sector.

Kylea Tink shares her motivations to join the independent’s movement, and why she believes now is a critical time in politics for Australian society. Learn more about Australia’s alarming global rankings; 1st for women’s education, but 50th in the world for the gender pay gap, and 70th for women’s workforce participation.