BWAW 2023 CONCLUDES ITS THIRD EDITION OVERCOMING 2,600 ASSISTANTS

• Due to BWAW 2023 success, its 4^th edition will take place next year on the 7^th and 8^th of March.
• This benchmark in terms of walking towards gender equality has achieved gathering 50 speakers at 10 sessions, as well as obtaining huge engagement –2,000 people– through its online platform.

Barcelona, 10^th March 2023.- Barcelona Woman Acceleration Week (BWAW) puts the finishing touch to its third edition, achieving a higher rate of assistance –both online and onsite– in comparison to last editions. The event, as well as DFactory Barcelona, have become together –once again– an important platform where to reflect on women’s role at society and within the work environment, especially at fields like Industry, where female presence is smaller.

Over these two days, 2,600 people have attended the conferences for enjoying their content. Among them, 2,000 people have accessed online, while other 600 have participated onsite. This event, boosted by Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona (CZFB) and Spanish Chamber of Commerce’s INCYDE Foundation, has gathered a panel of 50 top speakers –national and international, men and women– in order to reach solutions that enable move forward gender equality within the business and industrial fields.

Second day

BWAW’s second day has started with the conference called “Moving towards gender equality: Cases of success within the private industry”, in order to put important women within private companies at the centre stage. At this event, Ángeles Delgado López, president of Fujitsu, stressed that “there are currently only 22% of women in technology positions in the world; in Spain the percentage drops to 16% of positions in science and technology. Digitalisation is a combination of disruptive technologies that is impacting society and our lives globally, so it is essential that women are present“. Also were participating Lucila Ballarino, CEO of Womenalia; Sara Castro, Responsible for Human Resources at Danone Iberia; Ángeles Delgado López, President of Fujitsu; Peña Solano Ubiergo, Treasurer and Speaker of Good Corporate Governance at EJE&CON; Anna Gener, CEO Barcelona at SAVILLS, and Teresa Blanco, Diversity and Engagement Manager at ENAGÁS.

Then, discussions turned towards the interesting topic of “Female Health and Science”. Anna Bigas Salvans, Chief of Parc de Salut Mar Group, Responsible for Science at Ciberonc and Vice director at Institut Josep Carreras’ Investigación Preclínica (a research and health clinic) XX commented that “historically, scientific studies have had a clear gender bias, something that is now in the process of being corrected. We need to specify how the gender perspective is parity in any object of research”. Other speakers were Myriam Serrano, Chief editor at WOMAN magazine; Josep M. Campistol, CEO of Hospital Clínic Barcelona (Clinical Hospital of Barcelona); and Rosa Orriols, vice president at WOMEN IN GLOBAL HEALTH.

The third conference, called “Pros of gender diversity within the financial world” took place at 12 p.m., where Myriam Santos-Morán, Regional Director of Ibercaja Bank at the Mediterranean area, stated that “economic independence is the most important thing in achieving financial independence for women. Until now, many women have delegated it to male figures in their immediate circle. Therefore, female leaders in the financial sector must set an example for young women so that they can aspire to grow and achieve the acclaimed equality”. Joining him in this talk were Maria Alsina, Regional Director of Caixabank at Barcelona; MªÀngels Vallvé Ribera, President of the Board of Directors of GVC Gaesco Group; Mireia del Pozo, Director of European Women’s Study Centre (Centro Estudios Mujeres Europa); and Tali Salomon, Regional Director of eToro at Spain, Portugal and LATAM.

After the lunch break, Anna Lloveras Armengol –Responsible for Science at Ocean Ecostructures–, Celeste Reglà –Impact Ventures Programmer Officer at EIT Urban Mobility–, Inmaculada Riera –CEO of Spanish Commerce Chamber– and Blanca Sorigue –CEO of CZFB and BWAW– will be part of the conference in which they will talk about “What are the challenges female entrepreneurs have to face?”. Finally, María Helena de Felipe –President of the Association of Organizations of Mediterranean Businesswomen–, Carmen Geha –Founder & Managing Director at Soltara Consulting– and Clara Gruitrooy –General Secretary for Euro-Mediterranean-Arab Association– will debate, among others, about “Female entrepreneurs at vulnerable countries”.

The greatest interest from companies and different industries

At this edition, several fields have been addressed at every topic. In addition, every of them has deal with gender perspective within the digital world, the way women boost Technology 4.0’s development, female presence at public institutions or women’s role at jobs in the future. In relation to this, Blanca Sorigué –CEO of CZFB– said: “We have achieved that different fields within the business world had founded interesting being part of this event, which is increasingly becoming a benchmark in terms of accelerating gender equality. We are humble due to the interest aroused, because we have contributed to shed light on women’s key role at the economy. This encourage us to announce BWAW’s fourth edition, which will take place on the 7^th and 8^th of March 2024”.

Pere Navarro –Special Delegate of the State at CZFB– has also shown his opinion about the positive engagement: “With BWAW we can show the success obtained from the joint work between public and private sectors, which is essential to reach equality. From CZFB, we will still develop strategies and projects to continue to accomplish UN’s Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDG) wise guidelines”.

Click here for further information about BWAW’s third edition.