Madrid, October 21, 2024.- The Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Function, Óscar López, has participated in the ceremony of the V Edition of the Pioneeras_IT Prize, awarded by the Official College of Telecommunications Engineers (COIT) and which seeks to make visible the contributions and achievements to society thanks to the presence of female talent in the technological field and, in particular, in the field of telecommunications. During his speech, López stressed that “Spain is a leading European country in feminism and digitalization, but we can and must still do more to combine the transformative force of both revolutions. So that the reindustrialization of Spain does not leave half of its citizens behind.”
Valery Naranjo, winner of the Pioneras_IT 2024 Award, congratulated her on her impact and trajectory “in cutting-edge technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, image analysis or computer vision” and for projects such as Artikode Intelligence, “which increases the effectiveness in cancer treatments”. López also thanked the COIT for the initiative to organize this prize, which “makes visible the work of women in a strategic sector for our digital transformation.”
In his closing speech, the minister pointed out that “the situation of women in the world of technology is still far from being equal. The gender gap translates into bittersweet data that requires us to continue working.” In this regard, López has reviewed some of the measures that the Government has adopted in recent years to close it, such as “the equalization of maternity and paternity leave, which allows the conciliation between professional development and upbringing, or the Plan of Equality in Companies or the Co-responsible Plan, which affect the equalization of men and women in different areas of life.”
In addition, López has listed some of the investments that the department he manages has put in place to promote the generation and retention of talent, “allocating 16 million euros for 16 ENIA Chairs in the field of Artificial Intelligence; transferring 40 million euros for INCIBE to train more than 10,000 people in cybersecurity, and promoting the creation of CHIP Chairs, which have 45 million euros for specific studies on microelectronics and semiconductors in several universities in our country, creating at least 1,000 places.”