European conference in Barcelona underscores importance of women in tech

“Diversity in companies is very important because women bring an essential vision to the sector.” With this message, Laura Urquizu, CEO of Red Points summarized the aim of the “Europe Female Founders” conference which took place on Thursday in Barcelona with a special focus on women in tech businesses. More than 100 startup founders exchanged their experiences and discussed the challenges in developing a business in the IT sector. “Barcelona is a great place for IT business, because it attracts a lot of highly qualified talent from all around the world and this diversity is essential for tech companies,” confirmed Portuguese CEO Cristina Fonseca of Talkdesk. “I am especially proud that women are getting into this business, which is far too dominated by men,” said Marc Tluszcz, CEO of Mangrove Capital.

“Europe's Female Founders” is a conference series that will take place in different European cities and which stresses the importance of female executives in tech businesses. In this context, Laura Urquizu, CEO of Red Points, a company that helps companies protect themselves from and eliminate piracy and falsification on the internet, has highlighted the role of female founders in a sector that produces many products that are directed precisely to female consumers. She noted that women bring a different vision to business, which was very important. “It’s important to start with education,” she pointed out, and underlined the importance of explaining that building a tech company can be a very interesting and attractive career. “In Spain the presence of female founders and women in the technological sector is still very minor,” Urquizu added. Cristina Fonseca, CEO of Talkdesk, a company that offers software solutions for call centers with headquarters in Lisbon and San Francisco, also highlighted the lack of female role models in the IT sector. “Luckily this is changing,” she said, but also remarked that society still strongly conditions the job choices of female students.

According to numbers from the European Commission, as the organizers of the event reported, women represent only 30% of the 7 million professionals who work in the IT sector in Europe and only 10% in technical jobs.