25 April 2025
Inspiring the next generation: Girls in ICT Day 2025
Each year, Girls in ICT Day - celebrated on the fourth Thursday of April - encourages young women and girls to explore careers in STEM. To mark the occasion, we are pleased to share the outcomes of the two full-day workshops MaX organized at HiPEAC25 together with other European Centres of Excellence. The special workshops focused on the current state of HPC applications in Europe and reflected our commitment to gender balance and inclusion, ensuring diverse representation among speakers.
During the HiPEAC25 Conference in Barcelona, MaX and its fellow European Centre of Excellence (CoEs) co-organized two full-day workshops aimed at discussing the current status of HPC applications in Europe and the ongoing collaborative efforts to enhance their scalability (Read more about it). The organizing team focused on gathering contributions from the CoEs and other relevant projects. Special attention was given to gender balance when inviting speakers, reflecting a commitment to inclusivity and diversity in the HPC community.
As a result, the program featured:
- 22 technical talks
- 1 panel discussion
- 2 live demos
These sessions showcased contributions from 11 of the 12 active CoEs, as well as representatives from Destination Earth, EPICURE, ENES, CASTIEL-2, and the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. Notably, the speaker distribution was 74% female, 22% male, and 4% non-binary (Plot 1 in the image below). The workshops attracted between 25 to 30 participants per session and generated lively, in-depth discussions between speakers and the audience. Even more encouraging was the gender balance among attendees: 56% women and 44% men (Plot 2). Considering that the typical gender distribution in HPC-related events tends to be 10–20% women and 80–90% men [1], this shift represents a remarkable achievement.
Measuring Impact: Insights from the Speakers
To evaluate the impact of these efforts, we invited speakers to complete a short questionnaire. Below are some of the most meaningful insights from their responses. In terms of career stage, speakers were evenly distributed among early-career researchers, senior researchers, and team leaders (Plot 3).
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When asked:
“If you had not been invited as a speaker, would you still have attended the HiPEAC conference?”
23% of female speakers said yes, compared to 66% of male speakers (Plot 4 in the image below). This underlines the importance of actively inviting women to participate, as many of them might not have otherwise attended the conference. -
To the question:
“Did you ever consider declining the invitation to give this talk because you felt you were not the right person for it?”
39% of female speakers answered yes, compared to only 16% of male speakers (Plot 5). This finding highlights a key barrier to inclusion: women are more likely to doubt their suitability, even when they are fully qualified. It also reinforces the importance of direct invitations rather than open calls (e.g., “We need a volunteer to speak on this topic”). By proactively reaching out to women and underrepresented groups, we can help ensure a more balanced and representative set of voices in HPC discussions. -
Another question was:
"Do you think having women as organizers influences the higher participation of women as speakers at this event?"
To which, the majority of respondents answered positively (Plot 6).
Attendees Feedback
We believe promoting women’s talent and leadership in ICT is essential to building a stronger and more innovative HPC community in Europe. On this anniversary, we reflect on the collective actions that can be taken to break stereotypes and promote inclusion, diversity, and equity in science. To conclude, we would like to share a few quotes from attendees. Their words highlight the value and impact of the workshops:
“Thanks for establishing safe spaces for early career researchers. It was a great opportunity and experience.”
“Everything was quite welcoming, the communication with the organizers was great. It has been amazing being in a technical event with so many women, thank you!”
“Very interesting workshop, nice to have women presenting about HPC. We could think about organizing a separate (i.e. separate from HiPEAC) and independant women in HPC Workshop.”
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Survey conducted by POP3, ESiWACE3, MultiXScale and SPACE.
Results gathered/analysed by POP3 and ESiWACE3.
References
[1] DOI: 10.1145/3458817.3476164