Neural Notes: The fall of gender equity programs and what it means for tech and AI

Welcome back to Neural Notes, a weekly column where I look at some of the most important Australian AI news of the week. In this issue: The end of Boosting Female Founders, Women Who Code and Girls in Tech and the threat this poses to the tech and AI sectors.

July was a dark month for women in tech and business. It saw the closure of three programs designed to educate, upskill and in some cases, financially back women in the tech and startup industries.

The closure of the Australian government’s Boosting Female Founders (BFF) program, alongside the shutdowns of international organisations – marks a significant shift in the tech industry’s approach to gender equity.

These closures not only represent a loss of crucial support for women in tech — who make up only 28% of the IT workforce —  but also pose a profound threat to the diversity of voices that will shape the future of AI.

As more programs vanish, the industry is left to grapple with the consequences — most notably, the increasing risk of AI systems being developed without the diverse perspectives needed to mitigate bias.

The fallout from end of Boosting Female Founders

The BFF program, launched in 2020 with a $52.2 million budget, aimed to level the playing field for women-led startups in Australia by providing matched-funding support and mentorship.

Despite its promise and the high demand from female founders, the program was quietly terminated in July with $17 million of its allocated funds unspent.

This decision was justified by an internal government assessment that claimed the program failed to deliver a measurable impact on the broader startup ecosystem.

“It feels premature and punitive to say that it hasn’t delivered impact,” Kirstin Hunter, managing director of Techstars, said to SmartCompany.

“It’s almost as though it is blaming the recipients of that money for not being good enough, instead of taking a longer-term view and seeing what happens when you back those women founders in their current businesses and the future businesses they go onto form.”

The lack of impact excuse is one that has been strongly contested by those involved in the program, including mentors, recipients and applicants.

“I actually think that completely undermines and is damaging to the reputations of the women who received that funding,” Ally Watson, co-founder of Code Like a Girl, said.

It’s worth noting that the Boosting Female Founders program only had three cohorts across four years.

During that time it was juggled between two governments and was plagued with problems.

The matched funding model, combined with an 18-month application process delay for the last cohort, threatened some of the businesses that applied. In a few cases, businesses that were recipients of the third round nearly went under while waiting on promised funding.

The program also saw significant communication issues between the government and applicants, as well as tech failures that resulted in some applicants falsely being told they were successful and others’ email addresses being doxxed.

To have the alleged failure of this program reduced to a lack of impact seems to be an exercise in misdirection. And so real equity is placed in a too-hard basket which, if you look real closely, is tinged with pink wash.

The collapse of gender equity initiatives

The closures of the international branches of Women Who Code and Girls In Tech — the latter of which ran for 17 years — are symptomatic of a broader trend where corporate and government support for gender equity in tech is rapidly declining.

Both organisations were nonprofits focused on closing the gender gap in technology.

Women Who Code supported women in technology through technical training, career development and networking.

Girls in Tech taught computer science skills and encouraged them to pursue careers in tech.

Fortunately, there is some positive news for the Australian chapter of Girls in Tech, which does provide hope. It will continue has Her Tech Circle. According to the organisation, it has even retained its sponsors.

For some others that are left standing, they haven’t been as fortunate with sponsors and are feeling the pressure as more corporate partners pull back funding.

“We’ve been in survival mode,” Watson said, reflecting on the pressures her Code Like A Girl has faced as corporate partners have pulled back.

“All these leaders stand up and say there’s nothing more important than gender equity in tech, but as soon as the financial pressures rise, that commitment just collapses”

“If it wasn’t for the Women in STEM grant that we were awarded at the beginning of 2021 like, there’s no doubt in my mind we’d be dead in the water too.”

This trend threatens to reverse much of the progress that has been made in increasing the representation of women in tech roles. The tech industry, long criticised for its gender imbalance, had been making slow but steady gains in this area.

Programs like BFF and organisations such as Girls in Tech played crucial roles in these efforts, providing not only financial support but also mentorship, networking opportunities, and a sense of community for women in tech.

This dismantling has broader implications for the tech industry, especially in Australia, where the government has set a goal of achieving 1.2 million tech jobs by 2030.

According to the Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR), as of May 2023, the numbers were sitting at 930,000.

Damian Kassabgi, CEO of the Tech Council of Australia (TCA), emphasised the importance of maintaining and expanding diversity initiatives to reach this target.

“Tech jobs are among the best paid, fastest growing and most flexible jobs in the economy. They also have half the gender pay gap we see in other high-paying industries. But women’s participation in the tech workforce remains an issue,” Kassabgi said to SmartCompany.

“While tech jobs will undoubtedly be a core part of our economic future, we know that not enough Australians from diverse backgrounds are getting an opportunity to work in these great jobs. The tech sector has made progress, such as the representation of people from CALD backgrounds, but there are other areas where we need significant improvement.”

According to Kassabgi, Australia needs to attract and retain women in tech to hit the TCA and the government’s goal to hit 1.2 million tech jobs by 2030.

“This requires investment in proven, effective initiatives to replace the Boosting Female Founders program. The closure of this program shouldn’t lead to an overall reduction in funding for such critical priorities,” Kassabgi said.

The risk of a narrower tech industry in the future of AI

This shift is particularly alarming given the simultaneous explosion of interest and investment in AI, a field that already struggles with diversity.

Attracting women into tech isn’t just about hitting job targets, but ensuring that the technologies shaping our future are built by a workforce that reflects the diversity of society. Watson was candid about the stakes.

“If you even have any sort of bias in there — sexism, discrimination — it’s going to be amplified with this technology,” Watson said.

Watson points to the biases and racial discrimination already seen in image recognition technology.

“If the creators of that technology were more diverse, that would have been picked up. Those blind spots are mitigated when you have the diversity around the creators.”

Hunter agreed and pointed to the “gender data gap” feeding AI, where the lack of diverse data leads to AI systems that reinforce existing inequities.

“It’s perceived to be a less biased and better source of information, and that’s hugely dangerous for users of AI-based products and developers,” Hunter said.

“There’s potential for a huge amount of social harm and also, correspondingly, a huge amount of economic loss if these products go down that path.”

Without targeted efforts to support women and other underrepresented groups, the tech industry risks becoming even more homogenous, which could stifle innovation and limit the industry’s ability to address the needs of a diverse population.

“If we can improve diversity in tech, we have the chance to tackle some of Australia’s biggest social challenges. This includes enhancing women’s economic security, driving Indigenous economic inclusion, and boosting employment opportunities for people with disabilities.” Kassabgi said.

“We also await the government’s response to the Pathway to Diversity in STEM Review, which should outline the next steps to increase diversity in STEM jobs, especially for underrepresented groups.”

But for now, it seems the focus of big tech, businesses, and even the government is firmly on AI.

Watson questions whether this influx of capital is being used wisely.

In her experience, a large chunk of the funding being pulled from equity programs has been due to a tough economic climate where big businesses are looking for opportunities with a quick return on investment. This includes injecting money into AI.

The problem is that despite the two-year-long buzz and a plethora of money being poured in — AI hasn’t been profitable outside of a handful of winners such as Nvidia, which has been an established hardware business for decades. Even OpenAI is yet to turn a profit.

Oddly enough, despite all of the potential that AI promises, the hype train may need to crash before we see the real longevity potential and what place diverse voices will have in it.

“I do think it’s either the bubble’s going to burst or it’s least going to slow down because it’s just not sustainable,” Watson said.

“I hope in a way that the bubble does burst and we see the finances go back to being a little bit more balanced to a place where we care about people, the future of our society, and of the products that we’re going to create.”

Other AI news this week

• Cosmos Magazine, which is published by the CSIRO, has used a Walkley Foundation grant to publish AI-generated articles. To add fuel to the fire, the AI was trained on content without permission of contributors. The CSIRO also ran the National AI Centre (NAIC) up until July 1 which “aims to help Australia become a global leader in developing and adopting trusted, secure and responsible artificial intelligence.” Uh huh.

• Internal documents have revealed that the returns of the controversial Humane AI pin are now outpacing its sales. Yikes
• Australian AI compliance startup, Graceview, lands $1.5 million in funding.
• Meta’s new chatbot doesn’t like math.

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This story has been updated to include the news about Her Tech Circle.