Netherlands: How Fairphone's Social Mission Created Gender Balance ... Without Really Trying

Oct 30, 2019 | Oliver Balch
View Original

Eva Gouwens had heard that the tech industry was male-dominated, but it wasn’t until she attended the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona for the first time that the extent of the gender imbalance really hit her.

“I hadn’t really noticed it as an issue until I saw the line for the toilets,” says Gouwens, chief executive of the ethical phone manufacturer Fairphone, which creates phones with no “conflict minerals” (ie from areas of the world with violence and human rights abuses), manufactured in a factory where workers are fairly paid. “It’s the first event I’ve been to where the queue was longer for the men than for the women.”