A total of 50 women with disabilities This Tuesday they begin their training to access technological positions thanks to the Radia Program, an initiative promoted by ONCE Foundation, the Conference of Social Councils of Spanish Universities (CCS) and Foundation CEOE, whose objective is to favor the inclusion of people with disabilities in digital work environments.
The president of the CEOE Foundation, Fatima Banez; the president of the Conference of Social Councils of Spanish Universities, Antonio Abril Abadin, and the CEO of Fundación ONCE, Jose Luis Martinez Donoso, were in charge of presenting this program.
As they explained, it is about offering employment opportunities to women with disabilities, who are the group with the fewest options for professional development in technological fields.
In his speech, Fatima Banez He stressed that "the greatest strategic asset that companies and also Spain have are people, and that talent, in its rich diversity and regardless of their capabilities, we need to have more competitive companies and a better society for all."
For its part, April Abadín He stressed that "being able, in a circumstance like the one we live in, to implement this Program is the confirmation of everyone's commitment to promoting diversity and equal opportunities in our society." He added that the 50 elected have the challenge of cementing the necessary commitment to STEM knowledge areas. "We have the talent and we have the training capacity in our universities. We only need to show, in the previous educational stages, the enormous possibilities of science, technology, engineering and mathematics for both men and women ”.
Finally, Martinez Donoso recalled that, according to all the analyzes, 90% of jobs will require digital skills in the future and that, at the same time, there is a gender gap in relation to access to and use of technology. For this reason, he continued, “and knowing that in the case of our group the gap is even greater, we have designed a very powerful technological training project for university students with disabilities, with which we want you to do a deep immersion on digital technologies, essential today for technical and qualified jobs ”.
“We like no one”, concluded the CEO of Fundación ONCE, “we know that talent is not incompatible with disability and that we can reach the highest levels of training and leadership and professional development if we try to do so ”.
The training period is divided into three phases, which combine face-to-face and virtual modalities, on the most burning issues of digital transformation, such as artificial intelligence, fintech, esport, e-commerce, cybersecurity, biotechnology, blockchain or Green teach. In addition, they will have mentorship and inspiring training with mentors from different companies and internships in technology companies.
The first phase, Brain Storm, begins this Tuesday with a talk on artificial intelligence given by Carlos Santana. The Mentor Women phase will be developed over 12 weeks in which the scholarship recipients will learn about the real contexts of the technological field from the hands of professionals who work in the digital world and will show them their day to day, in order to teach, inspire and empower them.
In the last phase, called Real Work, those selected will receive a digital training in 100 sessions of 4 hours and will be supported by mentors to carry out internships in companies selected. It is scheduled to end on June 30, 2021.
RADIA program
Radia Perlman's story inspired the name of the show RADIA WOMEN’S DIGITAL INCLUSION. Radia is the creator of one of the most widely used communication protocols in the world that makes networks work properly, stable, robust and secure.
Currently, only one out of every six ICT specialists incorporated into the labor market is a woman. This fact is also compounded by the circumstance of disability, which hinders the inclusion of women with disabilities in the field of higher education and employment. That is why the purpose of the program is to offer training and employment that includes more women with disabilities in the digital sector, recognizing both the value of their contributions and their talent, something essential to build an inclusive, competitive and dynamic digital society.
From this perspective, RADIA establishes a series of steps aimed at increasing the number of university students with disabilities sitting in jobs based on the use of digital technology.
