Ahead of International Women’s Day on Sunday, Cambre’s #TechAways team invites you reflect on this year’s #EachForEqual campaign. It focuses on the contribution to gender equality that we can all make as individuals. As a sophisticated audience, you’ll know that this isn’t just a women’s issue, but an economic and business one as well. For our economies and businesses to thrive, gender equality is vital. We need women in boardrooms, governments, bureaucracies, STEM education and more 💪. 

Our female readers will have endured their share of ‘mansplaining’ (and worse 🙄) over the years. Equally, some of their male counterparts may have been guilty of doling it out. But in Europe we’re relatively fortunate. Take, for example, the progress made on pay parity 💰 as well as the number of women at the upper echelons of the European institutions and tech organisations. At Cambre, we’re certainly doing our bit, with our 50/50 gender ratio! 

Still, there’s no cause for complacency. Much still needs to be done. In a perfect world, there’d be no need for International Women’s Day. But in the meantime let’s not stop at Sunday! Let’s keep up the #EachForEqual campaign for the rest of 2020. Feel free to share your experiences and views with the #TechAways team. 

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Trailblazers and stargazers [Wired] 

If you missed the 2016 movie Hidden FiguresKatherine Johnson, and many other women in the 1950s and 60s, worked as ‘human computers at NASA, making life-or-death trajectory calculations by hand to help steer astronauts through space and safely back home. Today, NASA engineers like Jenny Gruber use electronic computers to model trajectories but still rely on the mathematical foundations that Johnson provided years prior. Johnson passed away on 24 February at the age of 101, and there are an unmeasurable number of women whose own trajectories are possible because of her groundbreaking work.  

Sweet home Chicago – for women in tech! [Forbes] 

There are projects all over the world to help fight gender inequality, and we wanted to highlight you one on tech: Get Cities. A project launched by the Venture Capital firm of Melinda Gates, it invests in promising cities aiming to boost their tech scene and encourages them to place women in leadership roles. Only 16% of US graduates in computing sciences are women so the pipeline of talent needs to grow. Driving inclusive policy from the local level up, in major tech cities around the world, is one way to work towards closing the gender gap in STEM. 

Plan B for Twitter, Instagram and Co. [The Atlantic] 

For all the social media junkies amongst us, it can be very frustrating when popular platforms such as Twitter or Instagram are down. But don’t worry – Downdetector has your back in these situations! Downdetector is a website where users can report on outages of different internet services. During major breakdowns of popular platforms, the comment sections turn into small social media feeds where people talk about their experiences with the outages or just about life itself. Next time Twitter has technical problems, consider visiting this entertaining alternative – or put your smartphone away and enjoy the social-media-free minutes! 

The new prosthetics: from science fiction to modern medical science [Wired] 

This new prosthetic arm from DEKA Research and Development Corp. – and affectionately called ‘Luke’s Hand’ – takes inspiration from Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back to produce incredible results for those who need it most. By applying scientific knowledge on nerve tissue and muscle growth with complex algorithms, the new prosthetic arm is unlike anything seen before, closely mimicking the natural movements of a human limb with extreme precision. Although the system is in its early days, perhaps it goes to show the advancements of a galaxy far, far away are soon to be on earth. 

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In case you haven’t had enough… 

Wearable devices take ergonomics to a new high-tech place (Wall Street Journal) 

Silicon Valley leaders’ plea to Democrats: anyone but Sanders (New York Times) 

Twitter tests its own version of disappearing stories (Bloomberg) 

The ‘Dating Market’ is getting worse (The Atlantic) 

Decked out bed for gamers only comes in single sizes (Gizmodo)