Tech expert reveals worrying AI trend and makes stark prediction for future

COMPUTING chiefs say more women need to say ‘aye to AI’ so tech works for us all in the future.

Stats in Scotland show only around a fifth of uni applicants looking to study the subject are female.

Less than 20 per cent of the technology workforce in the country are women.

And organisers of the Ada Scotland Festival — which runs events for girls across the country — say we can’t have a workable AI future without greater diversity.

Festival director Dr Matt Barr, who teaches at Glasgow Uni, said: “With AI advancements, these tools are only going to be as good as the people who create them. We need to make sure gen AI is diverse and representative of the population.

“It’s more important than ever that we have women working on these projects to make sure they are fit for purpose and serving the whole population.”

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Anna Doyle, one of the co-leads at Ada Scotland Festival, echoed Matt’s point.

She said: “I’m not a creator. I’m not a coder. I’m not a computing scientist. But I am a female end user with three daughters.

“I don’t want an increasingly tech-based world designed by people who don’t represent me or those of different diversities. The creators and designers have to represent all of us.”

The festival was launched in 2020 when an incident at school spurred Matt on.

He said: “When I returned to university to teach computing science, I realised the gender balance hadn’t shifted in the 25 years or so since I was a student. It was stuck around 20 per cent roughly, female to male.

“Then when my daughter was in primary two, she was told by a boy in her class she couldn’t do Pokemon Go for her ‘show and tell’ because computer games were for boys. I kind of saw red. Coupled with the situation at university, I started to question, ‘What’s gone wrong?’.”

The tech expert reckons there are two main issues affecting the number of females choosing computing for a career.

He said: “There’s a PR problem. Computing is perceived to be for boys, not girls, which is ridiculous.

“And there’s a lack of visible role models, which is a self-perpetuating problem — with so few women in tech, where are the role models going to be?

“People have been doing little bits of work around this, really great work, but we thought — let’s bring it together in a festival and focus on getting some great role models.”

The fest will see a series of events held across Scotland, both online and in person, getting girls from primary age up to industry leaders together to smash stereotypes.

Dr Barr says the impact of previous events is already beginning to show.
He says: “We get great feedback from teachers.

“There’s a perception that working in tech involves sitting in a dark basement not talking to anyone, which is so wrong.

“So when they come in and work with women in the industry and see companies like Barclays, where we do the launch event, full of cool spaces, breakout rooms, people talking — it’s not what they expected. The kids say, ‘I want to work here’.”

At school, Rose Ulldemolins, who is Engineering Lead at Lloyds Banking Group and heads up the pioneering Dundee Tech School training programme, was one of the many girls who thought computing wasn’t for her.

She said: “I never considered tech as an option for me. When you look around at that age, most computer science courses are at least 90 per cent male and it’s a very male-dominated industry.”

Rose studied maths and joined the Lloyds graduate scheme, where she was offered software engineer training.

She added: “I joined my first team and realised there was a massive lack of gender diversity. If you don’t see someone who looks like you, it’s quite difficult to imagine fitting in.

“Ever since then, it’s been a massive passion of mine to improve gender diversity, and not just at Lloyds.”

Rose, who is taking part in the festival which launches on Monday, says there’s already been a massive change since the event began — but knows there’s lots more work to be done.

She said: “I reskilled six years ago and even in that time, society has changed. We see a lot more events, conferences and awards to celebrate women in tech.

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“When I started, we set up a women in tech network at Lloyds. Over the space of six years, it’s grown from five people to over 2,000.”

“It’s about continuing to bring role models to the fore.