- Ana B. Nieto, member of the FEDEPE Board: “Neither professional women nor female entrepreneurs can afford to miss this train—or end up again in the last car.”
- Gracia Rendo, President of the Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP): “Artificial intelligence is reshaping every aspect of our lives, but the gender gap in tech remains a major challenge.”
- Ivana Azzollini, partner at Deloitte Legal: “AI must be a catalyst for inclusion, not a tool for exclusion.”
- Cristina Aranda Gutiérrez, co-founder of Mujeres Tech and expert in tech innovation: “This is not the end of humanity, but the beginning of a new era for the humanities.”
The Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) and the Spanish Federation of Women Directors, Executives, Professionals and Entrepreneurs (FEDEPE) held the webinar “Innovation and Education: A.I. and women’s work – towards a new era of inclusion and equity. Why is it a women’s issue?” on June 24. The event, supported by Deloitte and featuring prominent international experts, is part of the E-meetings within the FEDEPE Colloquium Meetings, backed by the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy.
WEP President Gracia Rendo opened the session by stressing the urgency of addressing digital transformation from a gender perspective. “Artificial intelligence is reshaping every aspect of our lives, but the gender gap in tech remains a major challenge,” she stated. The event is part of a series of four webinars WEP and Deloitte will hold in 2025, focused on key pillars such as education, innovation, and public policy in support of female entrepreneurship.
Algorithms and Lack of Confidence: Persistent Barriers
Ivana Azzollini, lawyer and partner at Deloitte Legal, highlighted the limited access women have to STEM careers and technical roles in AI: only 20% of professionals in the field are women. She also called out the impact of financial scoring algorithms that penalize female entrepreneurs due to historical bias. “AI must be a catalyst for inclusion, not a tool for exclusion,” she argued.
Ana B. Nieto, economics journalist, member of the FEDEPE Board, and the federation’s representative in the United States, warned of the risk of women being left out once again in the technological shift: “Neither professional women nor female entrepreneurs can afford to miss this train—or end up again in the last car.” In what is already being called the fourth industrial revolution, she emphasized the role of women as wealth creators and leaders in digital transformation.
Speaking on behalf of FEDEPE—a nationwide Spanish federation representing 27,000 self-employed women, executives, professionals, and entrepreneurs—Nieto called for concrete measures to close the gender gap in AI tool usage. “Female entrepreneurs are adopting technologies such as artificial intelligence at a significantly lower rate than their male counterparts,” she noted, citing a study from Harvard’s Digital Data Design Institute. Among the causes: lower exposure to emerging tech roles and an underlying cultural factor: “Women may fear their competence will be questioned if it’s known they used tools like ChatGPT.”
Nieto shared a revealing example of gender bias: “I asked ChatGPT and Gemini why female entrepreneurs needed AI. Both answered: ‘to have more time to care for others.’ They didn’t offer that option to men.” She called for ethical AI frameworks with a gender lens, public policies to facilitate access to technology, and increased female representation in AI design teams. “This technology is not neutral. We urgently need more women inside AI—leading from within,” she concluded.
Diversity and Ethics by Design
Cristina Aranda Gutiérrez, PhD in linguistics and expert in technological innovation, co-founder of Mujeres Tech, focused her talk on the structural roots of AI bias. She reminded attendees that the very definition of AI was coined in 1956 by a homogeneous group of white men—excluding diversity from the outset. “If the data is garbage, the results will be garbage,” she declared, calling for regulation, transparency, and ethical training from the design stage onward.
What Can Be Done About Bias?
During the Q&A session, the speakers agreed on the need to:
- Demand transparency in algorithm training.
- Regulate AI’s impact on access to credit, employment, and representation.
- Promote diverse environments and public policies that ensure equal opportunities.
In the final round, all three experts identified education and training in AI with an ethical and inclusive approach as an absolute priority. As Cristina Aranda concluded: “This is not the end of humanity, but the beginning of a new era for the humanities.”
This online FEDEPE Colloquium Meeting, organized together with WEP, was moderated by Maurit Bruggink and is available for streaming on the FEDEPE YouTube channel.
This initiative was supported by the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy.
About FEDEPE:
FEDEPE, the Spanish Federation of Women Directors, Executives, Professionals and Entrepreneurs, is a non-profit organization founded in 1987. It brings together over 27,000 women from various business sectors and public administration. Its mission is to promote women’s professional development, access to leadership roles, and visibility—both individually and collectively—under conditions of full equality. FEDEPE is officially recognized as a Public Utility Entity and serves as a consultative body to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
