19.09.2024 / News

Business Breakfast "Women in High-Tech Industries: New Opportunities"

The business breakfast featured a meeting of women leaders from high-tech industries, where girls from different countries discussed promising trajectories for involving women in high technology, exchanged best practices in creating a corporate environment for discussing issues of women's professional development and finding points of cooperation to increase the representation of women in high-tech industries.

The moderator was Anastasia Minina , Vice-Rector for International Affairs at the Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University "LETI".

"Increasing the representation of women in knowledge-intensive industries is a task not only for the education system, government or the relevant industry in a particular country, it is a challenge for the entire global community. International exchange of best practices in involving women in the STEM sector is necessary for the timely and effective formation of a corporate environment that is equally focused on both men and women in terms of support, development and encouragement," said Anastasia Minina in her welcoming speech.

Among the speakers at the breakfast was Alexandra Ryabykh , co-founder of the Foundation for the Support and Development of Women's Initiatives "Association of Women in the Nuclear Industry". Alexandra said that despite different cultural realities, women face the same problems when working in STEM. Therefore, it is important to combine efforts and share experiences - this task is successfully accomplished by the International Council for the Support and Development of Women in Industry and Technology, which currently includes 16 countries.

"Women are becoming a new strategic resource for the global economy. That is why, on the part of professional communities and other institutions, we must provide girls with the necessary supportive environment and tools for involvement in high-tech industries in order to fully realize the professional potential of female specialists," Alexandra noted.

Glebova Ekaterina , Director of Social Projects at Medscan Group of Companies, noted that "the business landscape has changed over the past decades. And women are now getting positions that help them influence corporate culture, that help make important strategic decisions. For example, if you look at Moscow alone, half of the 15 million population, namely 49%, are women. And 77% of them work in healthcare and social services. This proves that women in our business really do make important decisions and can influence corporate culture."

Elena Tarasova , Director of Organizational Development at Nizhnekamskneftekhim, spoke about the specifics of training personnel for such complex industries as the petrochemical industry: "In order to train scientific personnel for our company, we first of all go to the university. And here we have specialized programs of interaction with our department profiles at the coolest universities in our country: Moscow, St. Petersburg, as well as Tyumen, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Tomsk, Perm and other cities. The second, no less important area is the cultivation of employees within the company. This is a number of specialists, for example, modelers or catalyst specialists. We go to the chief technologist's services, to the plant laboratories, where we recruit these people for additional training and stimulation of their career growth."

The business breakfast was also attended by Tekla Mutero, Founding President of the Namibian Association for Developing Mining Industries; Darya Alekseyevna Kryachkova , Vice President for HR Policy at PJSC MMC Norilsk Nickel; Olivia Limpe-Aw , President of the International Trading Corporation of the Philippines Destileria Limtuaco; Danica Grujicic , former Minister of Health of the Republic of Serbia, neurosurgeon-oncologist, professor at the University of Belgrade.

Women's participation in STEM fields continues to expand. It is important to continue to promote the development of women's professional and intellectual potential in research, scientific and technical, and production activities, and to overcome the persistent gender imbalance, since women and technology have a positive impact on each other.

By encouraging women to use their talents and skills in STEM professions, we accelerate the search for innovative solutions to the problems facing society.

Women specialists are a valuable asset in the successful implementation of technology projects, and their experience, knowledge and career achievements are the best indicator that work in this industry is a springboard for unlocking intellectual, creative and professional potential, including for women! The Fourth Eurasian Women's Forum is taking place on September 18–20 in St. Petersburg. The organizers are the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and the Interparliamentary Assembly of Member Nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The operator for the preparation and holding of the event is the Roscongress Foundation.

Official forum website: 2024.eawf.ru.