What if Europe is leaving billions of euros in innovation on the table?
Europe’s digital future cannot afford to leave half its talent behind. On 9 March 2026 in Brussels, in occasion of the International Women’s Day, Connecting Women in Digital brought together 80 in-person participants and over 250 online from across Europe for a high-level forum focused on inclusion in the digital economy.
Featuring voices including June Lowery-Kingston (DG CNECT), Henna Virkkunen (Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy), Elena Sancho Murillo (European Parliament), and our managing consultants and project coordinators Liubba El Hadi Hamed and Brendan Rowan, alongside thematic leads, the event explored barriers in ICT, AI, robotics, cybersecurity and leadership.
Women are over half of Europe’s population yet only 19% of ICT specialists, excluding talent limits innovation and growth, Europe’s future cannot be built with only part of its talent, STEM could add up to €16 billion to Europe’s GDP each year if women were fully included. Discussions also underscored persistent pay gaps of nearly 20% and the leaky pipeline, alongside fragmented implementation of EU gender equality frameworks.
Early education, mentorship, and stronger policy delivery to turn ambition into measurable progress, inclusion is not optional but essential to Europe’s competitiveness and resilience.
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