Artificial Intelligence Must Not Replicate Historical Gender Inequalities, Speaker Stresses, at Multi-Stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation
Women and girls must be at the forefront of designing and implementing technology and artificial intelligence (AI) tools to promote gender equality and combat gender-based violence, speakers emphasized today at the tenth multi-stakeholder forum on science, technology and innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The forum hosted two panel discussions this morning. The first, titled “Advancing science, technology and innovation for gender equality”, highlighted the urgent need to close the gender digital divide and elevate women’s leadership in the fields of science, technology and innovation. The second panel focused on “Leveraging science to conserve, restore and sustainably use the ocean and coastal ecosystems”.
In opening remarks for the first panel, Elina Kalkku (Finland), Co-Chair of the 2025 forum, stressed that gender equality must not be treated as an afterthought. “It cannot be an ‘add-on’,” she said, calling for a human rights-based approach to the development of AI and technology.
Aree Moon, President of the Korea Foundation for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology, and a member of the Secretary-General’s Group of Ten High-Level Representatives of Scientific Community, Civil Society and Private Sector, emphasized the transformative moment we are in. “We stand at a turning point in technological change,” she said. “We must ask who is shaping our future — and who is being left behind.” Globally, women represent only 30 per cent of researchers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Many who enter the field drop out mid-career due to systemic barriers. “This is about who holds the power and who gets to shape the future,” she added. She urged that AI and other technologies must not replicate historical gender inequalities, and stressed the need for education, awareness and training to make men and boys allies in the pursuit of gender equality.
Mariéme Jamme, Founder of IamtheCODE (United Kingdom), spoke of the urgency to equip young women with digital skills, particularly in under-resourced regions from Senegal to Pakistan. Her organization teaches coding and AI fundamentals to girls, providing tools to help them build the technologies of tomorrow. “To teach people to code, you need to start with the basics,” she said, noting that, at the time she founded her organization “no one had ever developed a platform to teach women and girls to code for free”. Noting her wellness app, now used by 25,000 girls in refugee camps in Kenya, she added, “AI can help tackle gender-based violence by providing privacy tools. But, we won’t get the AI systems we need if girls don’t have the skills to build them.” Young women, and girls and boys must be included into the conversation. “We really need to start thinking about we are serving,” she added. Young women “in the worst places on Earth are using technology to develop themselves”, she added.
Catherine Ngila, Executive Director, African Foundation for Women and Youth in Education, Sciences, Technology and Innovation (Kenya), recalled realizing at an early age the systemic discrimination women face. “We, women, are being discriminated against and at a very young age,” she said. Many women have become desensitized to this reality. Progress, she said, hinges on scholarships, mentorships, supportive policies and sustained funding. “We have to support girls, but also policies and practices are so important,” she added. “Let’s have more women who are mentoring young girls and even men who are mentoring young girls,” she added.
“As best as humans can be, we are imperfect — and we are both rational and irrational,” said Paola Cecchi Dimeglio, Chair, Executive Leadership Research Initiative for Women and Minority Attorneys, Harvard University (United States). It’s not just about having a representative dataset; it is about having an inclusive and diversified dataset. One important element is counterfactuals, she said. It is important to train datasets with phrases like “she is a doctor” and “he is a nurse” to challenge biases. She also advocated for using checklists to reduce errors in both training and annotation processes, helping mitigate algorithmic bias. “I don’t think there is bias in tech; I think it is a leadership failure,” she said, expressing hope to see a fairer future.
Sunungurai Dominica Chingarande, Vice-Chancellor, Women’s University in Africa (Zimbabwe), underscored the need to align digital transformation with legal and normative frameworks that promote gender equality. “We cannot talk about gender equality without talking about roles and responsibilities in the digital era,” she said. Decision-making power structures must also be re-examined. From Africa’s perspective, she highlighted efforts to embrace inclusive digital transformation, citing Rwanda’s initiatives inspired by the African Union’s digital strategy, which emphasizes infrastructure access as a key requirement. She also said that gender training is a requirement for all staff at her University and added that a science, technology, engineering and mathematics centre in the University is responsibility for mentoring high school students to motivate them to get into science programmes.
Moderated by Latif Nasser, Director of Research and co-host of WNYC Studios show Radiolab, the second panel discussion focused on harnessing science, technology and innovation to accelerate the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of the ocean and marine ecosystems. It also showcased advancements in digital ocean innovations and technologies that are reshaping ways to manage and safeguard ocean health, and highlighted challenges and opportunities in strengthening the science-policy interface to support effective marine governance.
Joseph Nguthiru from Kenya shared how his business, HyaPak, revolutionizes packaging by converting water hyacinth, an invasive weed, into biodegradable alternatives to single-use plastic product. “We create green jobs” for the affected fishing families. They harvest water hyacinth, to be converted into products that perform like plastics, but decompose within a given number of days or months. These are used in several applications by world-leading organizations in agriculture, parcel packaging, courier services and so on.
Lennox Omondi, also from Kenya, shared how his business, ECOBANA, produces biodegradable sanitary pads made of natural banana fibre. By ensuring that women and girls have access to safe, eco-friendly sanitary products, ECOBANA empowers them to stay in school, succeed at work and actively participate in their communities. “And we are trying to invite males who influence policy and who make decisions in communities and Government to come onboard and help us to make sure that men are involved in the mental-hygiene-management talks,” he said.
Nianzhi Jiao, Chair Professor of Cheung Kong Scholar, Xiamen University (China), introduced a conceptual framework, called the Microbial Carbon Pump, to elucidate the role of microbial processes in long-term carbon sequestration in the ocean. Unlike the traditional biological pump, which involves the sinking of particulate organic matter to the deep ocean, this concept focuses on the transformation of organic carbon into recalcitrant-dissolved organic carbon, which resists degradation and can remain in the ocean for a long time, effectively acting as a carbon sink, he explained.
Kwame Adu Agyekum, Remote Sensing Scientist, University of Ghana, said that he coordinates a project to provide information to Governments, local communities, academia and non-governmental organizations on how to safeguard the ocean. “The ocean plays an important role, because it’s most often the major source of food and protein for coastal communities,” he said. However, there is a slow uptake on the use of digital technology in in the ocean space. His task is to “go out there, engage, let the coastal people, fishermen and farmers next door to the ocean know that their activities could negatively impact the ocean”, and propose strategies and remedies.
Awa Bousso Drame, CoastGIS Research Institute (Senegal), said that AI offers a valuable opportunity to process large volumes of satellite imagery efficiently. AI can help design machine-learning applications to tackle coastal challenges, such as erosion and algal blooms, as well as monitor concentrations of phytoplankton and echoviruses in water. Another exciting area is the development of real-time monitoring tools — such as advanced sensor instruments — to measure wave conditions and physical chemical parameters. These tools would complement satellite-based observations. Importantly, these emerging fields lack adequate representation of women, she noted, encouraging girls and women to enter these areas and help address local environmental issues while promoting gender equity in science and technology.
Xavier Estico, Founder of the Seychelles Centre for Innovation and Sustainable Development, said that his country, though small in population, has emerged as a global leader in ocean conservation and climate innovation. In 2015, Seychelles executed the world’s first debt-for-nature swap focused on marine conservation that restructured $21.6 million of national debt, redirecting repayments into the Seychelles Conservation and Climate Adaptation Trust. The Trust funds marine protected areas, sustainable fisheries and climate adaptation projects. He also highlighted a coral reef restoration initiative that employs coral gardening techniques to rehabilitate reefs damaged by bleaching events.
In the afternoon, panel discussions focused on scaling up the financing of science, technology and innovation, capacity-building and strengthening research infrastructures for sustainable development.