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Make the digital single market inclusive!
With the report on "Gender equality and empowering women in the digital age", we want to send a clear signal towards the Commission and the Member States: A single digital market needs to be inclusive! We need to break persisting stereotypes about girls and tech. Education curriculums need to include coding and new media from an early stage; we need to make women in ICT visible and implement targeted mentoring programmes.
In order for Europe to remain at the forefront of innovation, we need a strong political commitment to tackle the gender imbalance in the ICT sector. The report highlights the importance of making funds available for female entrepreneurs to create ICT-related businesses and digital start-ups. The Commission can make an important difference here by setting up targeted support programmes in cooperation with the European Investment Bank.
Finally, there is a strong business case for tackling the gender gap: Equal participation of women in the ICT sector would lead to a gain of around 9 billion Euros in GDP each year. Opportunities are numerous and time is overdue – it is now on the Commission to put gender equality on all its memo pads, and women and girls at the centre of the Digital Agenda.