Innovation Beyond Gender: A Call for Action!

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to change many parts of our lives, from healthcare to education. But AI doesn’t always work equally well for everyone. AI reflects biases that exist in society and it can make these even worse. This can lead to unfair outcomes, where certain groups of people are left out or treated unfairly. Oftentimes, those who are already disadvantaged are the most affected. Intersectional-feminist and queer approaches to AI focus on understanding and addressing these problems. They ask critical questions about whose needs are being considered, whose voices are being heard, and who might be left behind in AI design. By putting the experiences and rights of marginalized people at the centre, these approaches help us envision and build AI that works better for everyone. Although such perspectives tend to be overlooked, they offer valuable ideas for creating technology that is fair and inclusive. This session invites the audience to dive into feminist and queer approaches to AI, showcasing inspiring examples of inclusive innovation.

Intuitively, we sense that diversity among individuals on the work floor is important, albeit not trivial. On the one hand, it can be very powerful in creating vital economic outcomes, such as innovation, because bringing together people with various backgrounds (e.g. gender, nationality, and ethnicity) creates a wider range of perspectives, views and approaches, unleashing creativity and ultimately spurring innovation. On the other hand, diversity can be a polarizing, and a hampering factor in finding a ‘common language’, as it can promote ‘in-group-out-of-group’ thinking, fueling distrust and even conflict. The latter is impeding economic outcomes by making diverse teams dysfunctional and unproductive. In the face of globalization and permeable borders, it is hence not only intriguing, but also very relevant from the scholarly, but also from the societal perspective to understand: When does diversity actually work? Most recent research findings suggest that whether gender or nationality diversity has a positive or negative effect on (corporate) innovation depends on the context in which diverse teams tasked with innovation are operating. In this talk we will discuss several of such contextual conditions.