Young people challenge male dominance in Danish tech

About 180 young technologists, programmers, artists and designers from several countries gathered in Rødvig on Stevns for a three-day conference challenging the male-dominated tech industry, DR reported.

The conference, Softer Digital Futures, was organised by the Danish tech network Softer and ran from 1 to 3 October. Participants explored different ways to develop technology and discussed who it should benefit and what values it should reflect.

Ida Lissner, a co-founder of Softer, said a narrow group of people still shapes ideas about technology and its future. She said the people who develop and regulate technology are often powerful, wealthy men.

Figures from 2024 show that women make up one in three IT students and about 20 per cent of IT specialists in Denmark.

Conference participant Ajo Eili Sylvest, a Softer lab coordinator who studies software development at Erhvervsakademi København, said they felt underrepresented as a femme and non-binary person. They said it could be harder to be taken seriously at work or in education when someone does not represent the majority.

Natasha Friis Saxberg, chief executive of the trade association IT-Branchen, said diversity was important both to the industry’s development and to addressing skills shortages. She said 43 per cent of the association’s member companies identify a lack of IT skills as their biggest barrier to growth.

Sylvest said conferences like this could help make the tech world more open and create space for new voices.