Innovation thrives when diverse voices are heard, especially in the tech industry. In this edition of “Her Voice in Tech: 3 Questions with…”, we speak with Lucille Verbaere, Cybersecurity and Trust- Senior Project Manager at European Broadcasting Union, who is making an impact in the media industry. She shares her experiences navigating a male-dominated field, the changes she hopes to see in the industry to empower future generations of women, and how Gaia-X can help strengthen Europe’s digital and data-driven future.
- As a woman in tech, how have you leveraged your voice to drive change in your field?
25 years ago, I was one of the 10 women out of 100 students doing my Master’s in Telecommunications in Paris. Things have not changed much since then unfortunately… Diversity is very low in some fields such as broadcast and network engineering or cybersecurity. We are often only 5-10% women, during the most technical conferences at the European Broadcast Union (EBU). In fields related to data or AI, it is a bit better, I would say around 15/20%?
As part of EBU Technology and Innovation team, I regularly contribute to the organisation of events that gather professionals from all media organisations and vendors. We strive to find female speakers and I also contribute by doing presentations and moderating sessions. I also take part in gender balance programs such as the WiSTEM organised by the BBC in the UK, presenting my work in schools, etc.
I am pleased to see that women are instrumental in coordinating and advancing Tems, the EC project for the deployment of the Media Dataspace for which I am a board member.
- What change would you like to see in the tech industry that will empower future generations of women?
I believe that recent technology jumps – AI, Digitalisation- will make STEM rapidly attractive to more women. For example, you will soon be better placed if you know how to use AI to develop SW than code yourself. Moreover, technical skills are not enough in today’s digitalisation: strategic, interpersonal skills/ collaboration are key.
I also believe that change of working habits and organisational styles – video conferences, cloud-based flexible workflows, organisations that are less hierarchical/flatter, less straightforward career plans, i.e. where it is normal to operate U-turns and regularly change companies, will also improve gender and work/life balances. It gives more chances for men to have work part-time and contribute at home without being frowned upon, and to women to have a career despite maternity leaves. The change of generation in management positions – fewer and less baby boomers- should also greatly help.
- What problem in your industry do you hope Gaia-X will solve in the next 5 years?
In media, we are big consumers of cloud services and very worried about our growing dependency on US Hyperscalers. We have great hopes that regulations and associations such as Gaia-X can speed up the development of serious alternative solutions to which we could migrate. We also hope that the deployment of data spaces – in which Gaia-X is instrumental in developing the trust framework and contributing to EU standard SW components – will help digitalisation and innovation in media. Data sovereignty and Trust within the data space will provide a much-needed standard solution to secure a fair value out of AI trained on our content. Lastly, having quality data from our audience can help provide better content and personalisation tools, in compliance with current regulations. This is key to better compete with global actors such as Netflix or social networks.