2nd HLF - Hot Topic - Panel Discussion Part 2 - The Role of Mathematics and Computer Sciences in Developing Countries -
Daubechies, Ingrid
Nguonphan, Pheakdey
Ibrahim, Adamou
Narayanan, P. J.
Kaykobad, Mohammad
et al.
Hot Topic Title: “The Role of Mathematics and Computer Science in Developing Countries“ Discussion: "How to raise the number of female Mathematicians and Computer Scientists" Experts discuss the role and potential of mathematics and computer science in developing countries and emerging economies at the 2nd Heidelberg Laureate Forum. The opinions expressed in this video do not necessarily reflect the views of the Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation or any other person or associated institution involved in the making and distribution of the video.
 Hi, thank you. I have kind of a comment and a question. So I noticed that at least for Bangladesh and Cambodia, there were some statistics not only about lack of interest in math and computer science, but specifically lack of girls and women interested in computer science. And it also seems to me that some of these countries like Ecuador and Niger where math and computer science is essentially new, that there's an opportunity to encourage girls and women to participate that maybe countries like the United States didn't really take advantage of. In fact, they actively discouraged them for a long time. So I was wondering if you could talk about that. Okay, so maybe an opportunity to get women into the field. And maybe, I don't know how it is in your countries, I have a friend who is very cynical about the lack of women in academia in some fields in developed countries who says that the number of women you get, which varies enormously all over the countries in Europe where the genetic constituents are not that different, but the number of women. And he said it's inversely proportional to the salary you get, to an average of the salary you get and the prestige the job has. So Switzerland, lots of money, lots of prestige, no women. I mean, Portugal, not so high salaries, not so high prestige, lots of women. So maybe that's an opportunity to get, I mean, if you inspire the women, maybe the... Maybe it's... I know it's terrible, but it's an opportunity, let's take it. I just want to... I just like to confirm that it's really a good chance, like she mentioned that the World Bank as a project maybe gives priority to women if they want to join science technology, IT, because in Cambodia for sure you have seen that it's very, very less, only what was at 300 and men's are 1400 or something. So it's really too less. And also it relates to the traditions that for instance architecture, actually here in Western world I see almost the same black balance between men and women, but in Cambodia, they... In one class there is only one, mostly only one girl, and they think this construction works and it's related to men only. This is still in man's mindset of the women in developing countries or countries with tradition that is divided by responsibility of women and men like that. And this is also in the case of computer science, I think it's still considered as a job of men in the mindset of women. But as a project, I agree that it can be... It's a good chance to motivate, give priority to women to join it. For example, my country, it is more or less the same tradition. I think the women are very scared in a research and in scientific studies in general. For example, I think we have... I'm sure... I think we have two women, mathematician women in my country. If I don't... You see, of course, yeah, maybe two women. I don't know for computer science, I think we have a woman. So that maybe if we have some specific motivation to propose maybe the woman. But I don't know my country at some time, at some level, the woman have to be married. So that after married, she have not enough faculty to do everything. That is maybe some problem. But maybe amount our perspective that I didn't... There is no detail in the presentation. I said we have our own perspective, too motivated with some concrete action. For example, we are trying to count since high school some very important students. But our idea is not really effective by lack of enough resources to do that. For example, what is our idea? Our idea is that to create besides the government flow for the student to create some specific flow, flow ship for some specific student. Since high school. So you would like to have special tracks? Yeah, of course. But we try to do this one, this action collaboration with my university in Spain. But at some times we have some problem, we are oblige to stop. But we have this idea. Maybe inside we can try to pick some specific condition for the woman. It can be maybe a little bit difficult about our tradition. Maybe a little bit our religion. It's just a comment on the gender issue. Because I think there is at least one counterexample showing that probably the reasons for low representative of females in the university, so in research, can be very different. The neighboring country of Cambodia, for instance, Thailand, there you have a majority of female university professors compared to the male university professors. And they are not that paid. I mean, they have very decent salaries. So that is also not the argument. So it must have a lot to do with the local traditions about the role of women in the society and of men, which are of course then depending on the local culture. But I mention in Thailand because Thailand is not all that different from Cambodia. But I think still the Cambodian society and the situation at Cambodian universities is not like in Thailand. So of course the salaries in Cambodia are much less than in Thailand. Not comparable and not enough to actually pay the living for a family. In India, the software and the computing programming jobs have been a big equalizer in the gender sense. The top universities or the elite university where the competition is high, we get about 20% girls students, women students into the university. But the lower, the middle level universities and colleges have much better, 40% even 50% some of them. And even the IT jobs, the service sector jobs, entry level 40, 45% women employees in unequal terms with the men. But due to various reasons, the attrition rate is much higher for women. So they say at the vice president level, there is probably 8% or 7% or very few women. A lot of it is, I don't know how much of it is structural issues, but there are also personal issues due to family, raising family, they drop out of the workspace or they don't aspire as high. So but at the entry level, the numbers are extremely good, but not senior management level. This is the numbers that they give. In co-curricular activities like all-empaired and programming contest, participation of women is less. It is also true for advanced countries. I remember in year 2002, SCM wanted a all-human team to the programming contest. And we got one from Yoha Women's University of South Korea. They actually did not do well. We tried in Bangladesh quite a lot and we had a girl who was very good. Somehow we trained them very well. And in 2012, she came to Italy for international Olympic and in informatics and she became champion among girls. Now in Bangladesh, we try to hold programming contest for women only so that they come a little bit forward, but it is still not up to the mark.
 Hi, thank you. I have kind of a comment and a question. So I noticed that at least for  Bangladesh and Cambodia, there were some statistics not only about lack of interest in math and  computer science, but specifically lack of girls and women interested in computer science.  And it also seems to me that some of these countries like Ecuador and Niger where math  and computer science is essentially new, that there's an opportunity to encourage girls  and women to participate that maybe countries like the United States didn't really take  advantage of. In fact, they actively discouraged them for a long time. So I was wondering if  you could talk about that.  Okay, so maybe an opportunity to get women into the field. And maybe, I don't know how  it is in your countries, I have a friend who is very cynical about the lack of women in  academia in some fields in developed countries who says that the number of women you get,  which varies enormously all over the countries in Europe where the genetic constituents are  not that different, but the number of women. And he said it's inversely proportional to  the salary you get, to an average of the salary you get and the prestige the job has. So Switzerland,  lots of money, lots of prestige, no women. I mean, Portugal, not so high salaries, not  so high prestige, lots of women. So maybe that's an opportunity to get, I mean, if you  inspire the women, maybe the...  Maybe it's...  I know it's terrible, but it's an opportunity, let's take it.  I just want to... I just like to confirm that it's really a good chance, like she mentioned  that the World Bank as a project maybe gives priority to women if they want to join science  technology, IT, because in Cambodia for sure you have seen that it's very, very less, only  what was at 300 and men's are 1400 or something. So it's really too less. And also it relates  to the traditions that for instance architecture, actually here in Western world I see almost  the same black balance between men and women, but in Cambodia, they... In one class there  is only one, mostly only one girl, and they think this construction works and it's related  to men only. This is still in man's mindset of the women in developing countries or countries  with tradition that is divided by responsibility of women and men like that. And this is also  in the case of computer science, I think it's still considered as a job of men in the mindset  of women. But as a project, I agree that it can be... It's a good chance to motivate,  give priority to women to join it.  For example, my country, it is more or less the same tradition. I think the women are  very scared in a research and in scientific studies in general. For example, I think we  have... I'm sure... I think we have two women, mathematician women in my country. If I don't ... You see, of course, yeah, maybe two women. I don't know for computer science, I think  we have a woman. So that maybe if we have some specific motivation to propose maybe  the woman. But I don't know my country at some time, at some level, the woman have to  be married. So that after married, she have not enough faculty to do everything. That  is maybe some problem. But maybe amount our perspective that I didn't... There is no  detail in the presentation. I said we have our own perspective, too motivated with some  concrete action. For example, we are trying to count since high school some very important  students. But our idea is not really effective by lack of enough resources to do that. For  example, what is our idea? Our idea is that to create besides the government flow for  the student to create some specific flow, flow ship for some specific student. Since  high school. So you would like to have special tracks? Yeah, of course. But we try to do  this one, this action collaboration with my university in Spain. But at some times we  have some problem, we are oblige to stop. But we have this idea. Maybe inside we can  try to pick some specific condition for the woman. It can be maybe a little bit difficult  about our tradition. Maybe a little bit our religion. It's just a comment on the gender  issue. Because I think there is at least one counterexample showing that probably the reasons  for low representative of females in the university, so in research, can be very different. The  neighboring country of Cambodia, for instance, Thailand, there you have a majority of female  university professors compared to the male university professors. And they are not that  paid. I mean, they have very decent salaries. So that is also not the argument. So it must  have a lot to do with the local traditions about the role of women in the society and  of men, which are of course then depending on the local culture. But I mention in Thailand  because Thailand is not all that different from Cambodia. But I think still the Cambodian  society and the situation at Cambodian universities is not like in Thailand. So of course the  salaries in Cambodia are much less than in Thailand. Not comparable and not enough to  actually pay the living for a family. In India, the software and the computing  programming jobs have been a big equalizer in the gender sense. The top universities  or the elite university where the competition is high, we get about 20% girls students,  women students into the university. But the lower, the middle level universities and colleges  have much better, 40% even 50% some of them. And even the IT jobs, the service sector jobs,  entry level 40, 45% women employees in unequal terms with the men. But due to various reasons,  the attrition rate is much higher for women. So they say at the vice president level, there  is probably 8% or 7% or very few women. A lot of it is, I don't know how much of it  is structural issues, but there are also personal issues due to family, raising family, they  drop out of the workspace or they don't aspire as high. So but at the entry level, the numbers  are extremely good, but not senior management level. This is the numbers that they give.  In co-curricular activities like all-empaired and programming contest, participation of  women is less. It is also true for advanced countries. I remember in year 2002, SCM wanted  a all-human team to the programming contest. And we got one from Yoha Women's University  of South Korea. They actually did not do well. We tried in Bangladesh quite a lot and we  had a girl who was very good. Somehow we trained them very well. And in 2012, she came to Italy  for international Olympic and in informatics and she became champion among girls. Now in  Bangladesh, we try to hold programming contest for women only so that they come a little  bit forward, but it is still not up to the mark.
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Hi, thank you. I have kind of a comment and a question. So I noticed that at least for Bangladesh and Cambodia, there were some statistics not only about lack of interest in math and computer science, but specifically lack of girls and women interested in computer science. And it also seems to me that some of these countries like Ecuador and Niger where math and computer science is essentially new, that there's an opportunity to encourage girls and women to participate that maybe countries like the United States didn't really take advantage of. In fact, they actively discouraged them for a long time. So I was wondering if you could talk about that. Okay, so maybe an opportunity to get women into the field. And maybe, I don't know how it is in your countries, I have a friend who is very cynical about the lack of women in academia in some fields in developed countries who says that the number of women you get, which varies enormously all over the countries in Europe where the genetic constituents are not that different, but the number of women. And he said it's inversely proportional to the salary you get, to an average of the salary you get and the prestige the job has. So Switzerland, lots of money, lots of prestige, no women. I mean, Portugal, not so high salaries, not so high prestige, lots of women. So maybe that's an opportunity to get, I mean, if you inspire the women, maybe the... Maybe it's... I know it's terrible, but it's an opportunity, let's take it. I just want to... I just like to confirm that it's really a good chance, like she mentioned that the World Bank as a project maybe gives priority to women if they want to join science technology, IT, because in Cambodia for sure you have seen that it's very, very less, only what was at 300 and men's are 1400 or something. So it's really too less. And also it relates to the traditions that for instance architecture, actually here in Western world I see almost the same black balance between men and women, but in Cambodia, they... In one class there is only one, mostly only one girl, and they think this construction works and it's related to men only. This is still in man's mindset of the women in developing countries or countries with tradition that is divided by responsibility of women and men like that. And this is also in the case of computer science, I think it's still considered as a job of men in the mindset of women. But as a project, I agree that it can be... It's a good chance to motivate, give priority to women to join it. For example, my country, it is more or less the same tradition. I think the women are very scared in a research and in scientific studies in general. For example, I think we have... I'm sure... I think we have two women, mathematician women in my country. If I don't... You see, of course, yeah, maybe two women. I don't know for computer science, I think we have a woman. So that maybe if we have some specific motivation to propose maybe the woman. But I don't know my country at some time, at some level, the woman have to be married. So that after married, she have not enough faculty to do everything. That is maybe some problem. But maybe amount our perspective that I didn't... There is no detail in the presentation. I said we have our own perspective, too motivated with some concrete action. For example, we are trying to count since high school some very important students. But our idea is not really effective by lack of enough resources to do that. For example, what is our idea? Our idea is that to create besides the government flow for the student to create some specific flow, flow ship for some specific student. Since high school. So you would like to have special tracks? Yeah, of course. But we try to do this one, this action collaboration with my university in Spain. But at some times we have some problem, we are oblige to stop. But we have this idea. Maybe inside we can try to pick some specific condition for the woman. It can be maybe a little bit difficult about our tradition. Maybe a little bit our religion. It's just a comment on the gender issue. Because I think there is at least one counterexample showing that probably the reasons for low representative of females in the university, so in research, can be very different. The neighboring country of Cambodia, for instance, Thailand, there you have a majority of female university professors compared to the male university professors. And they are not that paid. I mean, they have very decent salaries. So that is also not the argument. So it must have a lot to do with the local traditions about the role of women in the society and of men, which are of course then depending on the local culture. But I mention in Thailand because Thailand is not all that different from Cambodia. But I think still the Cambodian society and the situation at Cambodian universities is not like in Thailand. So of course the salaries in Cambodia are much less than in Thailand. Not comparable and not enough to actually pay the living for a family. In India, the software and the computing programming jobs have been a big equalizer in the gender sense. The top universities or the elite university where the competition is high, we get about 20% girls students, women students into the university. But the lower, the middle level universities and colleges have much better, 40% even 50% some of them. And even the IT jobs, the service sector jobs, entry level 40, 45% women employees in unequal terms with the men. But due to various reasons, the attrition rate is much higher for women. So they say at the vice president level, there is probably 8% or 7% or very few women. A lot of it is, I don't know how much of it is structural issues, but there are also personal issues due to family, raising family, they drop out of the workspace or they don't aspire as high. So but at the entry level, the numbers are extremely good, but not senior management level. This is the numbers that they give. In co-curricular activities like all-empaired and programming contest, participation of women is less. It is also true for advanced countries. I remember in year 2002, SCM wanted a all-human team to the programming contest. And we got one from Yoha Women's University of South Korea. They actually did not do well. We tried in Bangladesh quite a lot and we had a girl who was very good. Somehow we trained them very well. And in 2012, she came to Italy for international Olympic and in informatics and she became champion among girls. Now in Bangladesh, we try to hold programming contest for women only so that they come a little bit forward, but it is still not up to the mark.
and computer science is essentially new, that that the number of women you get, which varies mindset of the women in developing countries or Yeah, of course. But we try to do this one, this of female university professors compared to the role of women in the society and of men, which situation at Cambodian universities is not like