62% OF THE PARTICIPANTS WHO REACHED THE FINAL PHASE OF THE RADIA PROGRAM IMPROVED THEIR JOB OR FOUND A NEW ONE FOLLOWING THE TRAINING

The program is promoted by the ONCE Foundation, the CEOE Foundation and the Conference of Social Councils of Spanish Universities.

On Thursday, the ONCE Foundation presented the fourth edition of its RADIA program, an initiative that seeks to promote the presence of women with disabilities in STEM jobs. The three previous editions enabled 62% of the participants who managed to reach the final phase to find a new job or improve the one they had at the beginning of the program.

The program, which has already helped 167 women with disabilities, is promoted by the ONCE Foundation, the CEOE Foundation and the Conference of Social Councils of Spanish Universities. In its fourth edition, it is supported by Indra through its subsidiary, Minsait.

The presentation event of the fourth edition, which also served to award diplomas to women who have completed the third edition, took place at the headquarters of ‘Por Talento Digital’ of the ONCE Foundation and was attended by Patricia Sanz, vice president of Equality, Human Resources and Institutional Culture, and Digital Inclusion of ONCE’s General Council; José Luis Martínez Donoso, general director of the ONCE Foundation; Antonio Abril, president of the Conference of Social Councils of Spanish Universities, and Fátima Báñez, president of the CEOE Foundation.

In her speech, Sanz said that RADIA is a program that offers ” a second chance” for training, finding work, and weaving a very valuable informal support network. Because, she said to the students, “we shouldn’t just do great things, but also think about people”, as RADIA, “a successful program”, has done.

“Accessing the RADIA program is an achievement”, she said, because it is demanding in terms of work and experience, but also because of what it means after the training s completed: proof is that 62% of the students who have reached the final phase of this initiative have found a job.

In light of all of the above, the vice-president for Equality, Human Resources and Institutional Culture and Digital Inclusion of ONCE’s General Council was grateful for the work of all those collaborators who believe in women with disabilities and in the importance of technology. “As women with disabilities, if we take advantage of technology, we have opportunities”, she concluded.

Like Patricia Sanz, Fátima Báñez focused on the people and pointed out that RADIA is a “project for connecting people”, as it is conceived in such a way that the individual is at its heart, albeit assisted by the technologies and institutions that join forces and work together. It is a program, she added, that “is about the participants’ attitude and commitment. The success is your participation and the results you are able to achieve.”

Bañez added that, in addition to the alliance among institutions, we also need to take digitalisation and new technologies into account: “We are witnessing breakneck changes that are of great concern to us, but which we must view with optimism and find the right way to make this transition”.

“Rather than being worried about technology, we should be making sure it is doing what it’s supposed to do”, as RADIA does, a program in which values such as “society being more inclusive and economic growth being more social” are highlighted.

Meanwhile, Antonio Abril placed the spotlight on the difference in accessing and using technology between the male and female population: “The technology gap between men and women still exists, but through collaboration and consensus we must contribute to reducing it as much as possible. We, the Social Councils, are committed to this goal, and universities are institutions can play a fundamental role in this process. They are places where knowledge is forged, and knowledge is precisely the best tool to promote the empowerment of women and eliminate inequalities”.

FIGURES

As pointed out at the event, a total of 52 women with disabilities have found a job, improved the one they already had or started a business after going through one of the three previous editions of the RADIA program, which is now starting its fourth edition with thirty women from 11 autonomous regions.

The 52 participants who have improved their employment situation thanks to RADIA represent 62% of the 84 who managed to reach the ‘Real Work’ phase of the initiative, where the students were able to put into practice what they had learnt in the previous phases through an internship in one of the companies collaborating in the program.

Specifically, of the 52 women who now have better employment as a result of their time at RADIA, a total of 38 have done so by finding a job, 11 by improving the one they already had, and three by starting a business.

FOURTH EDITION

As Martínez Donoso explained, the 4th edition of the RADIA program will adapt to the needs set by the market in areas such as generative Artificial Intelligence, “which offers a new window for work”, but also to other values such as being able to have more time.

The director general of the ONCE Foundation added, nonetheless, that “we are very concerned about the ethics of Artificial Intelligence”, because if this is not addressed properly, AI could be used negatively and harm the most vulnerable groups, including people with disabilities.

The fourth edition of the RADIA Program will be attended by a total of 30 women aged between 22 and 55 from Andalusia, Aragon, the Balearic Islands, the Community of Madrid, the Community of Valencia, the Canary Islands, the two Castiles, Catalonia, Galicia and La Rioja with physical, organic, sensory and psychosocial disabilities.

As in the three previous editions, learning is divided into three phases that combine face-to-face and virtual training on the most pressing issues. It also includes tutorials and inspirational content with mentors from different companies and internships in technology companies.

The first of the three phases of the training is the so-called Digital Transformation phase, which aims to allow students to acquire knowledge and technological skills to work in jobs in the digital economy throughout its eight-week duration. Once this stage is over, it gives way to the Specialization phase, which is scheduled to run until the end of April 2024 and, as its name suggests, will offer specialized training focused on three certifications: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data, Cloud and Cybersecurity. Within these three specializations, students can take mandatory certifications as well as other voluntary ones that allow them to increase their proficiency in each of them. In addition, each of the certifications will grant the student the corresponding certificate. The third and final Real Work phase will begin in May and end the last week of July 2024, and students will be able to follow paid internships in a real environment, applying the knowledge they have acquired to increase their experience and learning.

RADIA Program 

The RADIA WOMEN’S DIGITAL INCLUSION program takes its name from Radia Perlman, the creator of one of the world’s most widely used communication protocols that makes networks stable, robust, and secure.

Currently, only one out of every six ICT specialists in the labour market are women. This is compounded by the fact that disability makes it difficult for women to be included in higher education and employment. For this reason, the purpose of the program is to offer training and jobs that include more women with disabilities in the digital sector, recognizing both the value of their contributions and their talent, which is essential for building an inclusive, competitive, and dynamic digital society. From this standpoint, RADIA establishes a series of steps aimed at increasing the number of female university students with disabilities employed in jobs based on the use of digital technology.