Israel leads in tech innovation, not in gender inclusion - opinion

We felt the urge to connect with other women with the same appetite for innovation, start-ups, science, engineering, and taking our share of the “promised techland.”

As part of the Start-Up Nation, we realized that Israel is definitely not leading the way on women’s inclusion, and that a little help from other ecosystems might help.

As an island, Israel breezes through its connections to the external world. As an economy, Israel grows through its immaterial services. As individuals, Israelis earn two to three times more on average if they work in the tech industry. If an Israeli woman wants to be independent, she’d better work in hi-tech.

Worldwide, the inclusion of women in tech is rising at a very slow pace, from 26% in 2016 to 28% in 2024. Only 2% within eight critical years that have been witnessing the explosion of the AI industry, meaning that we lack women in the room when it comes to defining data sets, applying interpretations, and missing the big picture that should encompass the other half of world population. Women are “missing in AI translation.”

We should not count on algorithms to improve the distortion. On the contrary, it might aggravate and perpetuate the gap, being based on biased data sets and male-only interpretations.

We need to develop human discernment more than ever. It’s up to us to take care of the ethical set of values, at the level of our society and of our companies.

That is what makes interactions so precious, supporting one another, building chains of solidarities, exposing ourselves to the realities of others, going out of our comfort zones.

That is why last year, Women in Tech® Israel invited the first delegation of brave sisters who, despite the security turmoil and delegitimization Israel is facing, came to see with their own eyes, meet and speak with women from all religions in the ecosystem.

Some of the 13 delegates had firsthand experience of what discrimination and hate mean. For some, such as Zarifa Ghafari, they felt it in their flesh. Ghafari was a young female mayor of Maidan Shahr, the second-most important city in Afghanistan. After facing threats and being attacked, she was forced to flee, finding refuge in Europe.

To us, their presence had the effect of a balm on our wounds. To them, their journey was defined as “life-changing,” helping them better understand Israeli society from inside and recognize its tech ecosystem motivations.

Women score highly in tests for cognitive empathy. Therefore, the challenge is not only to have more women involved in the technological sector, shaping and using tech; it is also to involve more women in policy-making, shaping world opinions, diplomatic negotiations, and peace building.

In Israel’s high school matriculation exams, girls make up half of the top level in mathematics and 34.5% of the highest level in computer science. Their representation in such fields declines, however, during mandatory army service, where female soldiers are less integrated in the so-called highly computerized units, and they fail to seize the opportunity given by the military service to integrate the tech milieu.

Girls and young women fall behind even more when entering the academic STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) disciplines. All in all, they end up constituting only one-third of Israel’s hi-tech workforce.

Israeli hi-tech is the fuel of our economy. This is where we generate the most added value and our national comparative advantage. The hi-tech sector represented 53% of the country’s exports in 2024, and its share is increasing with record exits in 2025.

And still we could do more if we had all the skilled talents the sector needs.

We need to work on attracting, integrating, and retaining the so-called minorities, such as the female and Arab sectors of the population. This is the gap we have to work on.

In Israel, since women take an equal share of the burden, representing 47.5% of the working cohorts – much higher than the 42% world average in 2024 – this gap cannot be explained by the gender in the labor force regular statistics.

In theory, women should be equally represented in tech positions. Yet they are not. Israel does slightly better than the rest of the world, with 33.5% rather that 28.2%. However, unlike in all tech indicators where Israel is ahead of our time, leading the way for others, when it comes to female representation it is not a model to follow. There are some countries in Asia and Africa that are doing far better.

The Israel Innovation Authority’s Women in High-Tech Status Report 2026, which was published in March, highlights the tremendous gender wage gaps in the industry, which includes technical roles. For example in R&D, men’s salaries are 44% higher than those of women. This is alarming data.

In addition, women represent only one-tenth of purely technological and management positions in tech companies, with the rest working in support positions such as administrative roles, human resources departments, and marketing and sales.

In regard to tech entrepreneurship, only 15% of all Israeli-based start-up co-founders over the past 30 years were women, placing Israel 14th in the world.

These 15% of co-founders are predominantly found in sectors focused on social and medical fields.

During these days of war, it is clear that technology is the key to our survival, but it is also apparent that women are the backbone of our society, essential to our resilience. Increasing women’s share in hi-tech is the reservoir of our future growth.■