by Darya Majidi is an entrepreneur, an expert in digital innovation and gender inclusion. Founder of Daxo Group and author of books on women’s digital empowerment (Donne 4.0 and Sorellanza Digitale), she sits on the scientific committee of the Human Tech project at Politecnico di Milano.
On the occasion of the 2025 International Engineering Festival, we interviewed her for Frontiere at the end of the debate “Women and Artificial Intelligence: from threat to opportunity.”
We meet here at the International Engineering Festival at Politecnico di Milano, so I’d like to start by asking you something about your collaboration with our university.
I have the great pleasure and honor of being part of the scientific committee of Human Tech, which is a project of the Department of Excellence focused on human–machine collaboration. So Raffaella [Cagliano, Director of the Department of Management Engineering] and I have now been working together for three years, and I’m very happy and proud of that.
Let’s take advantage of Professor Cagliano’s presence to better understand what Human Tech is.
R.C.: The aim of the project is to rethink the way technologies are developed and then adopted in production processes, value chains and work organization, in order to keep the person at the center. So making sure that technologies are positive for society and for people’s well-being.
It is a major overarching project — started in 2023 and lasting five years — aimed at creating several research streams on this topic.
Darya, speaking precisely about keeping the person at the center, you talked about AI as in some way dangerous for women. Is this only about the issue of bias, or are there dangers that are even more hidden?
One of the dangers is that, by working on historical data, we end up propagating and amplifying biases and stereotypes from the past. Phrases like “Woman at the wheel, constant danger” will contaminate knowledge.
Another danger is the fact that, by not involving women in the creation of these systems, we exclude 50% of knowledge and the female perspective, which is different. In fact, I would use the word knowledge on purpose.
Think for example of women’s medicine, of gender-specific medicine. The involvement of women means we can better understand symptoms; men simply cannot know everything, they have a gendered perspective. So, by not involving women’s knowledge, we risk creating incomplete systems.
The third problem is that women, by not studying these subjects, prevent themselves from entering the job market and from taking top roles in these systems.
A problem we’ve been carrying with us forever…
The most recent data tell us that women graduate with higher grades and leave school with better diploma and degree scores. But then, by often choosing academic paths that are disciplinarily distant, they do not have the opportunity to work in these sectors.
The last thing to note is that jobs typically held by women, such as call centers, customer service, shop assistants and data entry, are all jobs that in the near future we will be able to quickly replace with generative AI. In fact, it is already happening.
Do you think data are intrinsically affected by bias? And will it ever be possible to separate them?
Data represent a mirror of language, so they are already imbued with bias.
One example above all: if we ask the translator of a famous search engine to translate the sentence “The doctor was an expert” into Italian, the system automatically returns “Il dottore (male) era un esperto.” If instead we insert “The nurse was an expert,” it automatically translates as “infermiera” (female). So it is a translation with gender bias that is actually intrinsic.
I already talked about this in my 2018 TedX; back then it was just an alert. Now we have gained more experience and we can ask ourselves whether we can use AI to clean up these translations. That is, by being aware of biases, systems can design filters that actually clean the data; so, paradoxically, AI can be an excellent ally for us.
You often speak of technology as a tool for women’s empowerment. Can we consider digital literacy today as basic literacy for people? In your opinion, should it be taught in schools from a young age?
Yes, digital literacy is definitely a tool of empowerment.
Think of the #metoo movement: why did it become global? Because women, spreading that hashtag, used the Internet to make a social denunciation. If we know what happens every moment in the world, in Afghanistan or Iran, it is because girls and women there can have a voice through technologies. This is why technologies are tools of power.
What is the problem? That if we use these systems consciously, they become a real ally. But right now, 90% of the AIs we use here are made either in Silicon Valley or in China. They do not include all European history, culture, Greek or Persian culture. It’s as if history were reset, and so we must be careful that these large language models take into account all diversities and nuances.
You say that entrepreneurship is important for women’s empowerment. My curiosity is whether it could somehow be based on a male-centered vision of society to associate personal success with economic gain.
I understand what you mean. But it’s one thing to want to become a billionaire for reasons of mere profit. It’s another thing to have one’s own economic autonomy.
At the moment, in Italy, 47% of women do not work, they do not have economic autonomy. This means that even to buy bread they must ask someone for permission. In previous generations, this economic dependence was contextualized within a social system that provided support for women. Now, with separations and divorces, women who are alone and without work unfortunately represent a new form of poverty. And even for those who work, things are not always easy: women employed in technology sectors face a pay gap that reaches up to 25%.
There is a cultural shift we need to put into practice. Soon, European directives will be issued that should ensure that, for equal tasks, women receive the same salary. We are aware that a woman who does not work is also more exposed to violence.
And this is not a matter of capitalism; it is a matter of finding the best balance in working life.
Can you give me some examples of how technology can improve this balance?
Of course. In various parts of the world, interesting experiences are emerging, stemming from the so-called gig economy. These are professions based on consultancy-type activities. Imagine if we women took ownership of these skills. For family-related care reasons we often need to stay at home, but if we learned how to use the Internet to create an alternative source of income, we would have a powerful tool for work-life balance. This is what women should be taught: the “9 to 5” job is disappearing worldwide because young people want more flexibility. Tools such as part-time work will increasingly become a reality.
But competitiveness is global: on the other side of the world there may be another worker who does the same job for a much lower wage. This is why skills will truly matter.
There is, for example, a freelance services platform where people, mostly young, offer their abilities for a fee they set themselves. For example, to build a website, some ask €15 and others €2,000.
It is not a race to the bottom, because you can see what each person offers at that cost, valuing their skills. Paradoxically these platforms give a voice to artists, content creators, to those who, for instance, compose a song or a jingle, as well as to those who produce videos with AI.
I think that is an aspect of entrepreneurial work that young Italians have not yet discovered, and that will instead be one of the most interesting professional opportunities in the future.
Digital violence is now pervasive; it is almost considered a collateral effect of social media. Do you have any ideas on possible solutions to digital violence, or must we consider it a lost battle?
I am convinced that the solution is awareness.
I think that of those 700,000 individuals who were caught on that infamous platform for sharing photos of unaware women, the vast majority did not know they were committing a crime. Many people believe that because it is digital, it is not real, and therefore not a crime. Would these individuals ever walk around carrying such a photo of their own wife?
And then I want to make an appeal to men: be carriers of a new masculinity, of a new male figure, one that is protective. It’s not enough to say “Don’t take part in that,” but if you see it, you must report it. If you hear a sexist joke among men, don’t consider it banter. For us women it has always been offensive, only now we have given ourselves a voice and started saying: “Look, this is not okay.” We would like other men to be the ones to say enough, that this is not okay.
May I ask how your passion for technology and digital tools was born back in times not yet “suspicious”?
I went to elementary school and part of middle school in Iran, where the mathematical training is much more advanced. When I arrived here, I entered the second year of middle school, but I would leave the classroom during math lessons because in that subject I was much more advanced than my classmates. I studied the Aeneid during those hours. That good preparation stayed with me later in high school, where I graduated with a score of 60 — the old 60!
When I reached the moment of choosing a university, I remember that I definitely wanted to study a technological subject, maybe mathematics or physics. Then I discovered the Department of Information Science in Pisa. Learning that I had this excellent school not far from me, I enrolled.
Did your family support you? Did they tell you “Go and smash it,” as you say to the women you meet?
As far as I remember, my father asked me: “But what exactly do you study?” It wasn’t engineering; it belonged to the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics.
Since the web did not yet exist, there was nothing to show except punch cards. Even explaining exactly what I was studying was not easy for me. So much so that later, when my daughter was asked at school: “What does your mom do?”, she didn’t know how to say it. Some parents were doctors, others engineers. So she would say: “My mom is a doctor of numbers!” It’s a way of describing what I do that became famous in my family.
After my choice, my dad always encouraged me, always told me “You are a champion!” So much so that I have this phrase tattooed in Persian, a language that has no feminine or masculine. And it is the phrase I always say to my daughter as well.
The conversation with Darya Majidi reminds us that technology is not neutral: it reflects the values and choices of those who design it. For this reason it is essential that women be protagonists, not just users, in the digital and AI world. Inclusion, awareness and education are the keys to turning risks into opportunities and building a future in which innovation and fairness advance together. The final message is clear: “Go, fly and smash it,” because change starts with each of us.