UN deputy secretary general: tech must empower, not overpower us

Amina J Mohammed UN MWC19The deputy secretary general of the United Nations, Amina J Mohammed, has used her keynote speech at MWC19 to call for more gender equality in business.
“The digital world reflects and exacerbates inequalities in the real world,” she said.  “When women seek venture capital, they get $2 for every $98 given to male-owned startups.” At the end of her presentation, she asked the women in the room to stand up. Typically, there were far fewer women than men in the room, as she noted, saying: “There is an imbalance in this room that we need to correct.”

She also laid out a four point plan to ensure that technology empowers, rather than overpowers us. She said it was necessary to create a multi-stakeholder, decentralised co-operative mechanism that will steer technology change for good. Secondly, she said, the spread of digital technology need to be inclusive, and leading innovators need to be supported.

Her third point was around education. “We need to repurpose the current educational system, reinvest in science, technology and maths, and, where it doesn’t exist, add software coding to grade school curricula. We also need to repurpose educational systems for lifelong learning. Whatever skills are required at the beginning of a career are likely to be obsolete 10 years later.”

Her final point was a call for reflection. “As individuals, parents, societies, it is easy to get carried away by the pace of change,” she said. “Which one of us has not used a mobile device to entertain a small child as an alternative to human interaction. We need to take a step back and ask what technology does for our mental health and wellbeing.”

In conclusion, she said: “The world we leave for those who come after us has to be a matter of choice, not a consequence of neglect.”