Tech For Good Summit: Jean-paul Agon Co-chaired The Tech For Good Diversity Session

At the initiative of the French President Emmanuel Macron, 80 companies gathered for the 2nd edition the Tech For Good Summit at the Elysee Palace on the eve of VivaTech.

This summit aims to show how disruptive technologies can have a positive impact on our society. This year, five workshops were on the agenda: Education; Diversity; the Future of Work; Economic Inclusiveness and the Environment.  

On May 15, L’Oréal’s Chairman and CEO Jean-Paul Agon co-chaired the session “Tech for Diversity” with Gillian Tans, CEO of Booking.com. Together they advocated for a tech that would promote an inclusive workplace.

During this session, 20 CEOs and Marlène Schiappa, Minister of State for Gender Equality and the Fight against Discrimination, reinforced their commitment on diversity and reiterated that for them it is truly linked to better performance. 

They agreed to commit to the following actions:

1. Women in leadership

They reaffirmed their commitment towards reaching 30% of women in leadership positions by 2022 and they also invited the companies outside their session to commit. At this stage, 46 out of 80 companies signed up. In addition, they decided to start reporting on their progress regularly and share best practices.

2. Tech for diversity and inclusion

They wish to maximize the use of tech to mitigate biases and promote Diversity and Inclusion in hiring, training, promotions, career planning and to reduce gender pay gap. They will also create momentum around this idea by mapping and promoting start-ups that work on these matters.

3. Women in Tech

They encourage to reach 30% of women in Tech positions both for Tech companies and non-tech companies. All of the companies present know that this is very ambitious.  To do so they committed to sponsor programs that promote Tech education for girls: Tech4Girls. Moreover, they committed to put major efforts on training and reskilling women employees towards Tech jobs of tomorrow.

4. Bring diversity in our ecosystem

• Encourage financial support and VCs initiatives in women-owned businesses and startups. Recognize companies that promote gender equality as a criterion for financial investment
• Encourage companies to sponsor programs dedicated to gender equity
• Promote women-owned businesses as suppliers