SDG 5: Gender Equality | SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth | SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure | SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) | Ministry of Science and Technology | Ministry of Women and Child Development
The APEC Women in STEM Symposium 2025, held in Korea, served as a critical regional platform to address the persistent gender gap in the AI and STEM sectors. Under the theme “Empowering Women in AI for a Sustainable Future,” the event brought together over 300 stakeholders to develop actionable strategies for reducing gender bias in technological design and fostering inclusive leadership. India was one of the 12 non-APEC member economies represented at the symposium.
The symposium emphasized that women currently represent only 30% of the global AI workforce, with participation dropping below 20% in certain APEC economies.
Key strategic takeaways and outcomes include:
Reducing Algorithmic Bias: Experts highlighted that the active involvement of women in AI design is a “strategic imperative” to eliminate systemic biases, such as discriminatory hiring algorithms and flawed facial recognition.
Life-Cycle Support (Attract-Retain-Advance): Discussions focused on a “full-cycle” approach, ranging from early childhood outreach and mentoring to providing flexible work arrangements for women returning from career breaks.
Data-Driven Governance: A proposal was made to institutionalize the collection of sex-disaggregated data across APEC to monitor systemic changes in STEM participation and leadership.
Regional Collaboration: The event advocated for Mission-Oriented Innovation Policies (MOIPs) to tackle regional challenges like public health and food security through collaborative, gender-responsive AI.
Ethics as a Superpower: Speakers framed AI as a “new superpower” that must be guided by ethical frameworks and digital literacy to ensure it serves the public good rather than surveillance or manipulation.
What is gender-responsive AI? It refers to the deliberate process of ensuring that AI systems are designed, developed, and governed by diverse teams that include women and other underrepresented groups. This approach aims to identify and mitigate biases embedded in training datasets or algorithms, ensuring that technology—such as healthcare diagnostics or financial credit scoring—delivers fair and equitable outcomes for all segments of society regardless of gender.
Policy Relevance
India’s participation and the symposium’s findings are highly relevant to the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which mandates coding and STEM orientation from primary levels to normalize technology for girls. Despite having the world’s highest percentage of female STEM graduates at 43%, India faces a severe “Leaky Pipeline,” where women hold only 14% of STEM jobs and 26% of AI roles.
Strategic Alignments for India:
Bridging the Participation Paradox: India can leverage the symposium’s “Networked Model” to scale domestic initiatives like Vigyan Jyoti and GATI, which focus on institutional gender equity and rural outreach.
Economic Impact: Increasing women’s workforce participation to parity levels could boost India’s GDP by an estimated $700 billion by 2025, aligning with the Viksit Bharat vision.
Global Mobility: Adopting APEC’s shared standards for AI competencies can enhance the international employability of Indian women tech professionals, especially through collaborative platforms like the WINGS international grant scheme.
Follow the full report here: APEC Women in STEM Symposium 2025: Empowering Women in AI for a Sustainable Future