Women Leading the Future: Innovation, Talent and Technological Competitiveness

The week of International Women’s Day (8 March) offers an opportunity each year to reflect on the role of women across different professional fields. In parallel, the celebration of 4YFN, one of Europe’s leading startup and technology events, shines a spotlight on those designing the solutions that will shape our economic and social future.

Both occasions converge around a single question: who is taking part in building the technological future?

Innovation is advancing at great speed. Artificial intelligence, business digitalisation and the transition towards sustainable models are redefining entire industries. However, women’s participation in the technological sphere remains uneven, especially in technical and leadership positions.

Analysing this reality is not only a social matter. It also means understanding how to improve the quality, impact and competitiveness of the innovative entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Because the technological future does not rely solely on innovation, but on the talent that drives it forward.

A real step forward, but still insufficient

Women’s participation in scientific and technological fields has grown progressively across Europe over the past decade. However, data shows that this progress remains uneven, particularly in the spaces where innovation is defined and strategic decisions are made.

The She Figures report by the European Commission indicates that women represent approximately 34% of all researchers in the European Union, but their presence drops significantly in the business and technology sectors, where they remain underrepresented in areas linked to engineering, digital development and applied innovation.

This disparity is especially visible in emerging sectors. Stanford University’s AI Index Report 2024 notes that around 30% of the global AI workforce is made up of women, a share that falls even further in advanced technical roles.

Spain reflects a similar trend. According to the National Observatory of Technology and Society (ONTSI) , women represent 19.5% of digital specialists in Spain, a figure very close to the European average (19.4%). Over the past year, this proportion has increased by 1.4 percentage points, equivalent to 23,500 additional women joining specialised digital roles. This confirms a positive evolution, while also showing that the digital sector’s growth is still not incorporating all available talent.

Additionally, the gender gap is also visible in the use of artificial intelligence: 38.6% of women report using AI tools, compared with 45.9% of men— a difference of 7.3 percentage points.

The gap widens when analysing the creation of innovative companies. The South Summit Entrepreneurship Map 2024 indicates that only 20% of Spanish startups have at least one woman founder. In other words, inequality affects not only access to technological jobs, but also business leadership and the development of new innovative projects.

Overall, the data reflects a clear trend: women’s participation increases as the technological ecosystem grows, but decreases when specialisation, leadership and decision-making rise. This dynamic raises not only an equity challenge, but also a strategic question regarding the ecosystem’s innovative capacity.

Equality as a competitive advantage in innovation

In a context where technology directly influences everyday life—from healthcare systems to educational platforms and artificial intelligence models—gender equality becomes a structural factor for the quality of life of all people.

The composition of teams designing digital solutions affects how problems are identified, how data is interpreted and how products are developed. In this regard, the European Commission highlights that more diverse and gender‑balanced teams are more likely to develop better, fairer and more inclusive technology and digital solutions. 

For this reason, more and more investors and organisations are incorporating diversity and equality into their strategic criteria. This is not only a matter of corporate responsibility, but a decision linked to business sustainability and long‑term growth.

From this perspective, the low representation of women in certain technological fields constitutes a social gap that limits collective innovative potential.

Financing and leadership: a gap that shapes growth

In this context, the link between equality and access to funding becomes evident. One of the main challenges for innovative entrepreneurship led by women is not only the creation of companies, but their consolidation and ability to scale on equal terms within the technological ecosystem. 

One of the persistent barriers for women-led innovative entrepreneurship is the consolidation and scalability of projects. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2024/2025 report indicates that although women’s entrepreneurial activity has grown globally, significant differences remain in access to funding, particularly in expansion and high‑growth stages.

The study shows that women entrepreneurs tend to start businesses with lower levels of initial capital and rely more on personal resources or informal financing. Moreover, the probability of securing external funding for high‑growth projects remains lower than for projects led exclusively by men.

In high‑income economies—including most European countries—the gap widens when analysing technology‑driven or innovation‑oriented entrepreneurship, where women’s participation remains proportionally lower. This disparity is not due to lower entrepreneurial capacity, but to structural factors such as less accessible investment networks, lower female representation in decision‑making environments and differences in risk perception.

The challenge, therefore, is not only to support the creation of companies, but to ensure social, cultural and economic conditions that allow women entrepreneurs to scale, internationalise and compete on equal terms within the innovation ecosystem.

Role models and new generations: where the future begins

The challenge begins long before entrepreneurship. The European Commission’s Women in Digital report notes that fewer than 20% of AI specialists in Europe are women, underscoring the need to strengthen technological vocations from early educational stages.

Role models play a decisive role. Seeing women leading technological startups or developing innovative solutions helps normalise their presence in historically male‑dominated sectors. 
In this context, the ONE Platform plays a key role as a space for visibility and connection. Through specialised content, interviews, events and dissemination spaces, it helps give visibility to women‑led projects and create accessible role models for new generations of entrepreneurs. A recent example is the article: Women role models: leading today the science that will inspire the girls of tomorrow. 

Fostering technological vocations is not only an educational investment: it is a direct investment in future competitiveness. Tomorrow’s talent begins to take shape today, and making it visible is also a way of driving it forward.

The coincidence with 4YFN 2026 is a reminder that the technological future is not an abstract projection, but a process that is being shaped right now. Every business decision, every investment and every entrepreneurial initiative helps define the society of the coming years.

In this scenario, the question is no longer whether women should take part in technological development. The question is how to accelerate their participation in the spaces where technological innovations are designed, financed and led— innovations that will shape the lives of everyone.

Expanding the base of innovative entrepreneurial talent, with a gender‑balanced representation of women and men, is not only a matter of fairness and equality. It is a strategic necessity for building more democratic, just, sustainable and representative societies.