Winners of IDEA 2020 awards announced

Sabrina Jodexnis, Julia Heidinger and Stefanie Stoppel of the Social Developers Club won over the jury with their "JustAI" workshop focusing on gender bias through artificial intelligence. The workshop targets young people who programme AI projects under guidance and develop an awareness of gender bias based on their results and social media content. The jury lauded another prize-winner Dr. Miriam Stehling's cloud based software "Diversitize" for offering an innovative and scalable means of professionally monitoring equality work and diversity management in companies and public institutions on a digital platform. The software saves time and resources and makes equality goals measurably accessible in all areas. Meanwhile, Melanie Schütze, founder of the the Hamburg-based women's network "nushu", won this year's honorary prize for special commitment. The network, in existence since 2019, offers a range of digital panels, workshops and podcasts for women across sectors  and provides networking opportunities.

"The digitalisation of our society has lent new weight to demands for equality. Many structural disadvantages have shifted to the digital level or are even intensified by it," Fegebank stressed.  "The IDEA prize-winning projects help raise awareness of digital equality early and further equality processes with digital tools. At the same time, this sets the course for a stronger representation of women in high-tech professional fields. We need their participation and their views to counteract discrimination in the digital space."  
tn/sb/pb