REGISTRATION: WAITING LIST
AGENDA OVERVIEW:
12h00-13h00 - Registration/Light Lunch
13h00 -13h15 -Welcome & setting the scene
13h15-15h00 - Plenary Session
15h00- 15h30 - Coffee Break
15h30 -17h00 – 3 parallel workshops
17h00-18h00 – Reception
LOCATION: BIP Meeting Centre, 2-4 rue Royale, Brussels, Belgium, 1000
The main aim of this conference is to explore the intersection of gender inequality and the transformative impact of AI in the European workplace, while identifying actionable solutions rooted in the principles of social democracy to ensure a fair and inclusive digital transition. By bringing together diverse stakeholders to foster meaningful dialogue and collaboration on gender equality in an AI-driven world, the conference will address the following key questions:
- How can we encourage EU and national institutions to take a more proactive approach in fully integrating women’s rights into digital policies?
- How can we advance women’s rights in the development of digital ecosystem in Europe?
- How can we strengthen AI literacy in the workplace to ensure equal opportunities for all?
- What strategies can be implemented to address gender inequalities in occupational safety and health?
The plenary will address how artificial intelligence systems risk perpetuating and amplifying gender biases unless ethical standards and diverse representation are embedded throughout their development, deployment, and use. Drawing on Ivana Bartoletti’s work, it will highlight the need for stronger governance, transparency, and gender-inclusive digital policies—particularly within the EU—to ensure that AI fosters gender equality rather than reinforcing existing inequalities. The follow-up political panel will raise critical questions such as: How can we encourage EU and national institutions to take a more proactive approach in fully integrating women’s rights into digital policy frameworks?
The plenary is co-hosted by the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) and the Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung (FES).
Ivana Bartoletti is Vice President, Global Data Privacy and AI Governance Officer at Wipro, the leading international information technology, consulting, and business process services company. An internationally recognised thought leader in privacy, AI governance, and responsible technology, Ivana serves as an expert for the Council of Europe, where she co-authored a pivotal study examining the impact of artificial intelligence on gender equality. In her latest book, A Digital Union: Based on European Values (published by FEPS), Ivana delves into forward-thinking strategies for shaping Europe’s digital and AI policy landscape. She is a co-editor of The AI Book, released by Wiley, which serves as a comprehensive resource for investors, entrepreneurs, and fintech innovators. She also authored An Artificial Revolution: On Power, Politics, and AI (published by Indigo Press), which explores AI at the intersection of technology, geopolitics, governance and ethics.
As AI systems become increasingly embedded in our societies, their impact on equality and non-discrimination raises urgent challenges, particularly around automation, bias, accountability, and fundamental rights. This workshop will explore the risks and potential of AI for equality across key EU policy areas — from employment and health to education and security — highlighting the need for specific workplace AI regulations and an intersectional approach to building a fairer digital ecosystem. It will also examine how policymakers can respond to the growing power of Big Tech while ensuring AI systems promote fairness, transparency, and accountability.
This parallel workshop is co-hosted by the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), the Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung (FES), Gender5+ and the EUGENDERING Jean Monnet Chair.
The rollout of AI and algorithmic systems poses significant gender-specific risks to workers’ safety and well-being. AI-driven surveillance and performance metrics can disproportionately impact women, reinforcing workplace inequalities and limiting autonomy. Additionally, these technologies can enable gender-based violence and cyberviolence, heighten workplace harassment, and deploy invasive emotional recognition systems that track and influence workers’ expressions, undermining privacy and psychological well-being.
This parallel workshop is co-hosted by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and the Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung (FES).
The AI Act defines AI literacy as the skills and knowledge needed to use AI responsibly while understanding its opportunities, risks, and harms, including its impact on gender and intersecting inequalities. Strengthening AI literacy is vital to expose how AI systems can reinforce biases, systematically exclude women and marginalized groups, and to equip trade unions and civil society to demand greater transparency, fairness, and accountability. This is key to ensuring AI supports equality and workers’ rights rather than replicating or deepening existing discrimination.
This parallel workshop is co-hosted by the SFI Research Centre for AI-driven Digital Content Technology (ADAPT), the Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung (FES), the European Network of Equality Bodies (Equinet), TUAC, Financial Service Union, DGB and SSSH/UATUC Union of Autonomous Trade Unions of Croatia.
Christina Kampmann is an executive board member of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and an SPD member of the North Rhine-Westphalia State Parliament since 2017. Her experience includes serving as the state's Minister for Family Affairs, Children, Youth, Culture, and Sport and a long-term focus on digital policy, including serving as the SPD parliamentary group's spokesperson for digital affairs at the state level until 2022.
Isabelle Schömann has been elected Deputy General Secretary at the ETUC 15. Congress in Berlin, in May 2023. She leads ETUC policies on Democracy at Work with a focus on Workers’ Information, Consultation and Participation, on Legal Affairs with a focus on Trade Unions, Workers’ and Human Rights, the ETUC legislative, legal and litigation strategy (the ETUCLEX), on Gender Equality, on Single Market, and on Human Centric Digitalisation with a focus on Artificial Intelligence in the world of work.
Previously serving as Confederal Secretary from 2019 to 2023, Isabelle has played a central role in shaping and advancing the ETUC agenda. She has been instrumental in driving forward initiatives on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence and reinforcing the role of European Works Councils. Moreover, she has led the ETUC’s pioneering positions on Artificial Intelligence and the Right to Disconnect, while championing collective bargaining rights for self-employed workers. Her leadership has also been pivotal in combating gender-based violence, embedding a Human Rights Legal and Strategic Litigation approach within the ETUC, and promoting the Social Progress Protocol. Additionally, she has contributed to defining a worker-centered EU Industrial Strategy, advocated for a sustainable and inclusive EU Competition Policy, and helped position the ETUC within debates on the EU’s Open Strategic Autonomy.
Mrs. Florence Raes is the Director of the UN Women Brussels Liaison Office since 15 August 2023.
Previously, she served as Regional Director ai and Deputy Regional Director for UN Women in West and Central Africa from 2020, overseeing 24 countries with a focus on Women, Peace and Security, Women’s Economic Empowerment, and Humanitarian Action in the Sahel. She was also the UN Women Representative in Argentina, Paraguay, and Mozambique, where she expanded portfolios, forged partnerships, and achieved normative milestones like gender-sensitive economic policies and care frameworks.
Before joining the UN, Mrs. Raes was an Associate Researcher and Professor at the University of Brussels, publishing on democratic transitions, Women’s Rights, and social movements. She also worked on global research programs and advised organizations like Oxfam, the UN, and the EU. Florence holds a master's degree in international relations from the University of Brussels and a master’s degree in Latin American Studies from the University of London. She is fluent in French, Dutch, English, Portuguese and Spanish.
June Lowery is a senior expert and equality coordinator at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content & Technology (DG CNECT). Her current responsibilities include encouraging more girls and women into the digital sector, and supporting digital equality and inclusion.
Sophie Jacquot is Professor of Political Science at UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles, she is Director of the Institute of European Studies, and she holds a Jean Monnet Chair (EUGENDERING) on the challenges linked to the establishment of a Union of gender equality, non-discrimination and diversity. From a background in sociology of policy analysis, Sophie specialises in EU and gender studies. Her research interests focus on the transformation of EU gender and anti-discrimination policies.
Her work has appeared in the major journals in her fields of study (20+ articles in peer-reviewed journals, among which Journal of Common Market Studies, West European Politics, European Journal of Politics and Gender, Policy & Politics, or Journal of European Public Policy). She has published a monograph on the Transformations in EU Gender Equality Policy. From Emergence to Dismantling (Palgrave, 2015), co-edited several books on the notion of Europeanization as well as a Dictionary of Policy Analysis (in French), and written chapters on gender and the EU for handbooks and encyclopedias.
Dr Marta Lasek-Markey is a research fellow at the Trinity College Dublin ADAPT Centre for AI-driven digital content technology. She holds a PhD in Law and an LL.M. degree from Trinity College Dublin, as well as a master’s degree in Law from the University of Warsaw, Poland. She has published her research widely in leading academic journals and authored a monograph titled Law, Precarious Labour and Posted Workers. A Sociolegal Study on Posted Work in the EU (Routledge, 2023). Marta was also the recipient of the Brian Bercusson Award for outstanding research in EU Law presented by the European Trade Union Institute.
Charlotte Schlüter is a policy officer for gender equality at the German Trade Union Confederation. Her political expertise lies in the independent livelihoods of women throughout the lifespan as well as the digitalization of work. Charlotte studied psychology, philosophy, and gender studies in Groningen and Berlin.
Laeticia Thissen is a Senior Policy Analyst for Gender Equality at Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) where she is in charge of the foundation’s work related to women’s rights, equality and anti-discrimination issues. Over the years, her work has focused on topics ranging from gender injustice to care work and gender-based violence. Before joining FEPS, she worked in the European Committee of the Regions and in the European Parliament. She holds a Master’s degree in European Studies from Maastricht University and in Gender Studies from ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles). Additionally, she completed a post-academic specialisation course on ‘Migration, Ethnic Diversity and Intercultural Relationships’ and is a member of the Brussels Binder network, an initiative committed to improving gender diversity in policy debates and promoting women’s voices.
Mariam Camilla Rechchad is Policy Officer focusing on the impacts of Artificial Intelligence and Climate Change/Climate Change Mitigation on equality. She further supports Equinet’s work on Economic and Social Rights and their link with equality. Mariam holds a Masters degree in International Relations and Sociology. She has multiple years of interdisciplinary experience researching, monitoring, and advocating around issues of equality and anti-discrimination in academia, civil society, and international NGOs.
Anastasia Karagianni is a Doctoral Researcher at the LSTS Department of the Law and Criminology Faculty of VUB and former FARI Scholar. Her academic research focuses on the "Divergencies of gender discrimination in AI". Besides her academic interests, Anastasia is a digital rights activist, since she is a co-founder of DATAWO, a civil society organisation based in Greece advocating for gender equality in the digital era, and founder of @femme_group_BrusselsGR. Anastasia Karagianni was MozFest Ambassador 2023, and Mozilla Awardee for the project “A Feminist Dictionary in AI”– of the Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence working group.
Victoire Olczak is a dedicated researcher specialising in gender studies and European affairs. Her experience in associative, academic and institutional environments has given her a comprehensive approach to equality issues - especially gender equality. As a member of the think tank Gender Five Plus, she has authored and formally presented several policy papers addressing key EU policy issues from an intersectional and feminist perspective. She holds an MA in Human Rights from Sciences Po Paris and a BA in International Relations.
Dijana Šobota is Executive Secretary for International Relations and Organisational Development in the Union of Autonomous Trade Unions of Croatia. Her areas of responsibility involve European policy, research and educational activities, as well as communication and campaigns. She is a PhD candidate in Information and Communication Sciences at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. Her research interests focus on information literacy in the workplace.
Agnes Hubert is a founding member and the current President of Gender Five Plus. She is a recognised european expert on gender policy making. She was in charge of the EU gender equality policy in the nineties and continued to work on gender issues as a member of the Commission in house think tank. She is currently a professor at the College of Europe, affiliate researcher at Science Po - PRESAGE and member of the Haut Conseil de l’Egalité in France. She is the author of a recent book on “The European Union and Gender equality” published by FEPS/DIETZ in 2022. In 2014, she was awarded the “Legion d’Honneur” for having demonstrated an eminent merit in the service of European Integration and gender equality.
Brian McDowell is
Aline Brüser is Advisor on Gender Equality at the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). She holds a Bachelor’s degree in European Studies from the University of Bremen (Germany) and a Master’s Degree in Gender Studies and Social Policy from the University of Toulouse (France). At the ETUC, she has worked extensively on the EU Pay Transparency Directive and on trade-union led strategies securing equal pay and equal pay for work of equal value and a world of work free from gender-based violence.
Silvia Semenzin is an Italian sociologist and digital rights advocate specialized in online gender-based violence and online harms. She has conducted extensive research on digital sexual violence, particularly non-consensual intimate image sharing online. Silvia was the leader of the campaign #IntimitàViolata, which led to legislative changes against image-based abuse in Italy. She collaborates with international institutions and organizations advocating for digital rights, feminist activism, and platform accountability. Her work bridges academia and activism, focusing on the intersections of technology, power, and gender justice in the digital sphere.
Johannes Anttila is a policy expert whose work revolves around the questions of technology, technology policy, work, and workers. In collaboration with partners ranging from the UN, trade unions, Prime Ministers' Offices, and academia, his recent policy and research work has touched on themes of algorithmic management and algorithmic resistance, democratic AI governance, ethical technology development, and breakages of algorithmic systems. Johannes has been selected as one of the 35 under 35 Future Leaders on global governance, challenges of emerging technologies, and regulation by The Barcelona Center for International Relations and has served as chair and board member and the boards of directors of the think tank Demos Helsinki and the Finnish Information Society Development Centre TIEKE. Currently, Johannes is a policy advisor for the Left Group in the EMPL Committee at the European Parliament.
Miriam Klöpper is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway, where she works at the Faculty of Information Systems and Electrical Engineering. Previously, she was a doctoral candidate in the Information Systems Department at the University of Münster, Germany, and she holds a master’s degree in History of War from King’s College London. Her research focuses on the social and ethical implications of using algorithm-driven systems in personnel management, especially on the impact of such systems on social relations, hierarchies, and power structures in traditional organisations. She also focuses on workplace-surveillance, and equality at the workplace. Starting in June 2025, Miriam will serve as the board leader of the ACM Women’s Chapter Trondheim.
Dr. Inga Sabanova
Policy Officer
Email
Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Future of Work
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an FES blog that offers original insights on the ways new technologies impact the world of work. The blog focuses on bringing different views from tech practitioners, academic researchers, trade union representatives and policy makers.
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The Meme-ification of Political Issues. Moving beyond the pros and cons of AI-enabled virality for social justice. by Lucie Chateau
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