{"id":10241,"date":"2022-02-14T11:14:42","date_gmt":"2022-02-14T11:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1379327"},"modified":"2022-02-14T11:14:42","modified_gmt":"2022-02-14T11:14:42","slug":"europes-diversity-gap-can-only-be-solved-with-proper-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=10241","title":{"rendered":"Europe\u2019s diversity gap can only be solved with proper data"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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When it comes to ethnicity and gender nonbinary diversity, Europe has a massive problem: the data doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

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In the startup space, the vast majority of diversity data is about gender diversity, mostly binary.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

said Matteo Renoldi, Impact Specialist at Dealroom, a Dutch data provider on startups, investment activities and overall tech<\/a> ecosystems in Europe and around the globe. \u201cOf course, there are many more elements to diversity than just gender. Ethnicity is a very important one.\u201d<\/p>\n

This data gap has huge consequences for Europe\u2019s burgeoning startup ecosystem, which is estimated to be worth $3tn according to a European Startups report<\/a> and makes up 43% of European jobs<\/a>. That\u2019s a huge chunk of money that ethnically diverse and gender nonbinary founders<\/a> and talent could be missing out on \u2014 and data is key in pushing these conversations forward. Renoldi says:<\/p>\n

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Without representative data, it\u2019s hard to measure the current state of the startup ecosystem. Specifically, we have many hypotheses that we can\u2019t really test without data, e.g., black founders receive just a fraction of VC funding compared to white founders.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

After all, if you can\u2019t prove there\u2019s a problem, how can you tackle it?<\/p>\n

Where\u2019s the data?<\/h2>\n

The underlying reason behind Europe\u2019s lack of diversity data is a legal one; in the UK, US, and Canada, it\u2019s common for public institutions<\/a>, like the national census, to ask for participants\u2019 race or ethnicity. But in many European countries, this kind of data collection is illegal; neither France nor Germany, countries with a significant startup presence, for example, keep official stats on how many of its residents are Black. These laws extend to the private sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the information with regard to other types of diversity is you\u2019re either, as a company, not allowed to keep that information or ask for that type of information,\u201d says Pauline Wink-Zaanen, co-founder of 4impact, a VC fund focusing on European impact tech startups,<\/a> specifically the environment, economic inclusion, and health & well-being.<\/p>\n

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[In Europe] the focus is fully on [binary] gender. That\u2019s not what diversity is all about. Diversity is much broader than just male, female.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

According to Wink-Zaanen, there\u2019s also a social reason as to why there\u2019s not as much data on ethnicity and the gender nonbinary: identities are complicated, making them more difficult to track.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe division line is more complex. If you look at [4impact cofounder Ali Najafbagy], for example, he wasn\u2019t born in the Netherlands,\u201d she says. \u201cHe was, however, raised in the Netherlands and has a Dutch passport. He considers himself from a different ethnic background, but he\u2019s Dutch. So how do you classify this? There are many gray areas which make data collection difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was this complexity that inspired Dealroom to launch its own data collection initiative called \u201cClosing the diversity data gap<\/a>,\u201d in which they invite founders, investors, and startup employees to claim their Dealroom profile and self-report their ethnicity and gender. Renoldi tells TNW:<\/p>\n

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Our goal is to collect as much self-reported information as possible to then be able to investigate, in more detail, what the VC funding distribution is across different ethnic groups and if there is a correlation between investors\u2019 ethnicity and the ethnicity of the founders\u2019 teams.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And while it\u2019s possible to automate the process and use AI to recognize ethnicity based on images, Renoldi calls it \u201ctechnically difficult and unethical.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBinary gender studies are relatively straightforward, which is why gender is the most covered area of diversity research in tech (the binary thing\u2019s not ideal though we\u2019ll get to that too),\u201d Dealroom wrote in a blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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But ethnicity data is notoriously difficult to accurately source, and we believe the only responsible way to gather it is to ask people directly how they self-identify.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The data bottleneck<\/h2>\n

One founder familiar with Europe\u2019s data diversity gap is Christina Calj\u00e9. A born-and-raised New Yorker, Calj\u00e9 started her career at Goldman Sachs in London before starting her own tech consultancy to help US-based web and app development companies expand to Europe. She was then COO of Peerby, a Dutch B2C company working to promote more sustainable consumption, before becoming cofounder and CEO of smart video platform Autheos, which has since been sold.<\/p>\n

As a Black Latinx female founder, Calj\u00e9 refers to herself as \u201can outlier, in a positive sense,\u201d and she sees Europe, and the Netherlands in particular, as being \u201cfive to 10 years behind\u201d the USA in the ethnic diversity conversation, in part because of the lack of data.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not really a conversation yet from a professional perspective [on ethnicity],\u201d she tells TNW. \u201cIs the diversity of this country really being represented in the leading economic sectors such as technology?\u201d<\/p>\n

Calj\u00e9 was also the only founder from the Netherlands accepted to the Google for Startups Immersion Program for Black Founders in 2020, which she said provided her valuable resources and a supportive network of founders to talk to. She says that when she raised a discussion about the need for a similar program for other minority founders back in the Netherlands, particularly helping to address the underrepresentation of VC funding, the absence of related data on ethnicity quickly became a bottleneck.<\/p>\n

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When you talk to the stakeholders who would be well-positioned to try to lead, launch, or fund those programmes, you always get down to this issue: \u201cWell, is it really a problem here in the Netherlands? Are we that diverse? We don\u2019t really have the data around it, so we can\u2019t really diagnose this as an actual problem to address.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because there are certain legal limitations around capturing the demographic makeup from an ethnic perspective in these economic sectors, you can\u2019t necessarily point to numbers to illustrate the problem, you can only speak anecdotally. And that\u2019s not always convincing enough for the people who are the ones with the influence to create change.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Calj\u00e9 is similarly working on a diversity data collection project, in partnership with Google for Startups and Andy Davis, \u200b\u200bangel investor at Atomico and ex-Director of Backstage Capital London, which she hopes will not only shine a light on the black founder experience across Europe, but also turn into a supportive network for founders.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200b\u200bThe goal is to also showcase the innovation, and that this as an overlooked commercial opportunity\u2026 it\u2019s meant as a first step towards creating a cross border network for Black and brown founders, and investors who want to invest in them,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Solving Europe\u2019s talent problem<\/h2>\n

Diversity isn\u2019t just for diversity\u2019s sake. Research proving that more diversity and inclusion means better performing teams<\/a>, smarter decision-making and higher financial returns<\/a> is well documented.<\/p>\n

Gillian Tans, former CEO and chairwoman of Dutch hotel booking platform Booking.com, spent years working on corporate diversity and inclusion initiatives. She says that while conversations around diversity are further along today, companies should be even more focused on diversity data to improve their talent pipelines \u2014 something a lot of European companies notoriously struggle with<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s becoming more and more challenging for everybody to hold on to talent or even to attract talent in the first place,\u201d she tells TNW.<\/p>\n

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Diversity is the biggest opportunity to attract new talent. There are so many business cases why this is so good and needs more attention. Companies are more aware nowadays compared to 10 years ago, but there\u2019s a lot more work to be done.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Tans says data should play a key role in not only recruitment and hiring, but also HR and company culture \u2014 companies can then track not only how well they\u2019re attracting diverse talent, but how good they are at retaining it.<\/p>\n

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Data is crucial, and it keeps coming back. You need to understand: am I getting enough diverse candidates? How are promotional processes done? Do we see that it\u2019s actually working for diverse candidates? And do we have enough role models? It needs to be embedded in your culture\u2026 This needs to be sitting in all the managers to be embedded in the culture of the company, and that requires time and energy.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A better European ecosystem<\/h2>\n

A better startup ecosystem comes from better innovation \u2014 and better data can improve both.<\/p>\n

\u201cData is really what underpins the strengthening of our startup ecosystem, because ultimately, more diversity from a functional perspective, from an age perspective, ethnicity, gender\u2026\u201d Calj\u00e9 says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s going to create better products, that\u2019s going to create more marketable products and it\u2019s going to create more creative business models.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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