03 February 2026
Bilbao
At the request of MP Lore Martinez Axpe (EH Bildu), a panel of experts from the scientific and technical fields appeared before the Committee on Industry, Energy Transition and Sustainability of the Basque Parliament with a clear objective: to analyse the shortage of women technologists in the era of artificial intelligence (AI) and the consequences of this gap.
Among those attending were representatives from the University of Deusto: Mari Luz Guenaga Gómez, Vice-Dean for Institutional Relations and Communication at the Faculty of Engineering, and Lorena Fernández Álvarez, head of the university’s AI Committee. They were joined by the experts Ainara Bilbao Eraña, Aitziber Lasa Iglesias, Olatz Arbelaitz Gallego and Marta Macho Stadler.
Mari Luz Guenaga spoke about the Inspira STEAM programme, which, over the past 10 years, has involved more than 3,000 women as volunteers in bringing science and technology to young people aged 10 to 12. "You cannot be what you cannot see" (Marian Wright Edelman), and girls and boys need female role models in science and technology who are close to them. However, running a programme based on volunteering is a challenge, and every year the demand from schools exceeds the number of registered volunteers.
Volunteering means that these women – and men, who are committed to promoting STEAM and closing the gender gap, devote their free time to this cause. For this reason, we have developed the Inspira STEAM Commitment, a document signed by organisations aligned with our vision, mission and values, which also assume the time commitment and associated costs of the participation of these individuals in the programme. It is also essential for public authorities to support the visibility of women in STEAM through targeted actions and public policies.
For her part, Lorena Fernández highlighted the direct consequences that the low representation of women has on the creation and deployment of AI, showing how a lack of diversity leads to algorithmic bias that perpetuates stereotypes and discrimination. Fernández warned that these systems are not neutral, but rather ‘feed’ on human data and decisions which, if not monitored from an inclusive perspective, ultimately end up automating exclusion.
She emphasised that the under-representation of women in development teams is not only a gender gap in the workplace, but also an ethical and operational risk that compromises the reliability of digital tools. To illustrate this reality, she concluded her intervention with the following analogy: “The development of technology is like a photograph: someone chooses the angle, the lighting, and what is left out of the frame. Let the coded gaze of these algorithms not exclude half of society.”
