Episode 89: Women in Tech and the Role of AI in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Christine Bongard10/24/2024

The technology industry has long grappled with issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), particularly when it comes to women in technology roles. As we rapidly navigate digital transformation, one of the most critical issues is the potential for bias in artificial intelligence (AI) systems. As AI becomes increasingly prevalent, it also brings opportunities and challenges to address these longstanding concerns.

In the latest episode of #shifthappens, Dux Raymond Sy, AvePoint Chief Brand Officer, and Mario Carvajal, AvePoint Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer, is joined by Christine Bongard, the co-founder and CEO of The WIT Network. Their conversation offers insights into how AI could help create more inclusive workplaces, which leads to better business outcomes, improved employee retention, increased innovation, and higher productivity if implemented thoughtfully.

Christine emphasizes the importance of education, inclusivity, and proactive engagement with AI technologies to provide a roadmap for creating a more equitable and innovative technology sector.

The WIT Network: Empowering Women in Technology

The WIT Network, a global non-profit organization dedicated to supporting women in technology, has a growing community of 13,000-14,000 members. "We're all working to try and support women on their career journey and help them get access to learning and sponsorship to elevate their careers," Christine explains.

With a mission to provide professional development, technology training, and leadership opportunities through education, mentorship, and networking, the organization takes a broad approach to assisting women at all career stages. It also recently launched a new initiative called Wit Works, which focuses on connecting job seekers with companies and open roles using AI-powered skills matching.

Christine acknowledges the excitement and apprehension surrounding AI technology. There are endless possibilities of how this will transform the world and humankind. She also highlighted the need for education and preparation, stating we should "Get ahead of it and understand it, learn about it, and transform so that you come out on top."

Reimagining Recruitment and Career Development with AI

AI has the potential to make workplaces and hiring practices more equitable — but only if bias in AI systems is proactively identified and addressed. Christine shares Amazon's AI recruitment tool in 2018, which downgraded women applicants because it was trained on predominantly male profiles.

This illustrates how AI can perpetuate or even amplify existing biases in the job descriptions and the interview processes if not carefully developed. To combat such biases, Christine offers several recommendations:

1. Evaluate data sets: To understand the results, ask questions like what models were used or what data AI is trained on.
2. Build a diverse advisory board: Ensure everybody is educated on biases and have a diverse leadership team and developers in AI development.
3. Implement good practices: Advocate for transparency and third-party audits of AI systems to identify potential issues.

Beyond recruitment, Christine sees AI as a powerful tool in creating personalized career development plans, "How can we use AI to help people see a future in the organization? When you start in a company, you get a personalized development plan of the courses AI suggests and the different skills you need to pick up that will get you to this level and then to another level."

This type of individualized guidance could help retain diverse talent by clearly outlining growth opportunities and addressing employee pay equity. "Using AI to determine data for equitable pay - that's a dream that women still have that someday we will be paid the same as our male counterparts doing the same job," Christine explains.

Navigating Cultural Differences in Global DEI Efforts

Given The WIT Network's global reach, Christine shares regional differences in approaching diversity and bias, emphasizing the importance of tempering approaches while maintaining core values. "We do try to make sure that we are not pushing agendas too hard because things are received in different viewpoints around the world,” she says. “But at the same time, we are trying to support what we feel is best for women.”

The conversation also touches on how a lack of diversity in technology teams can lead to products failing to meet the needs of a diverse user base. Christine highlights the need to include women's perspectives, especially in product design and development, considering that women comprise a majority of the consumers. "Women make up more than 51% of the buyers. So, to not think about getting the input of a woman's viewpoint on how to build a product seems like a failure to me,” she shares.

By grounding diversity efforts in data about business performance, the organization can make a compelling case across cultural contexts. Christine cites research from McKinsey and Gartner, analyzing data that shows that more inclusive businesses have greater sales, profits, stock prices, customer satisfaction, and innovation. More inclusive product development also leads to better business outcomes, "We want people happy, we want people productive, and that drives, again, better business results."

Future Trends and Opportunities

Christine envisions more equitable recruitment processes, AI-driven fair pay determination, and personalized development plans for employees. She offers two crucial pieces of advice for leaders in the technology industry:

1. Educate yourself and ask tough questions: Research the data and understand how AI will impact your business and its strengths and challenges.
2. Drive inclusivity for employee retention: This is an opportunity to shape technology in a way that benefits everyone, reflecting the diversity of our world and harnessing the potential of all its users.

The future may be unwritten, but with leaders like Christine and organizations like The WIT Network, we have the opportunity to shape the future in a way that benefits everyone.