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Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid met with Ivanka Trump, daughter and adviser of US President Donald Trump, in Munich on Friday to discuss the empowerment of women and introduced Estonia's digigirls initiatives.
President Kaljulaid, Ivanka Trump discuss Estonia's e-state (1)
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"Right now, our lives are being influenced and transformed by robotics, algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI). When talking about women's empowerment, we should act fast because we need new kind of empowerment. Technology is a great equalizer and we need to make up for all of those kilometers that separate women from an equally free choice of benefiting from technological developments globally," Kaljulaid said during the meeting.
"In Estonia, we are dealing with issues of how to empower, support and educate girls in learning to use technology already from a very young age, so programming would be as ordinary for them as riding a bicycle," the head of state explained and talked about Estonia's initiatives, like Digigirls and HK Unicorn Squad, that are aimed at raising and supporting girls and women's interest in IT. The president added that this could be advanced globally from Africa to Pacific.
Ivanka Trump's initiative Women in Global Development and Prosperity (WGDP) was also discussed at the meeting and how to boost the best practices of US and Estonia globally. Kaljulaid also gave an overview of her activities as a co-chair of the Every Woman Every Child (EWEC) movement, which advocates for the health of women, children and adolescents.
From Friday to Sunday, Kaljulaid will be participating in the annual Munich Security Conference, where she will be taking part in a discussion on the future of Ukraine and speaking at the Young Leaders Forum about technological diplomacy. This afternoon, the president will be taking part in a public debate entitled NATO@70, looking back on the past seven decades of the alliance and discussing how the world has adapted to the changed security situation with NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller and the National Defense Minister of Portugal Joao Gomes Cravinho.