Connecting women in Digital consortium advances final-phase priorities at General Assembly in Vilnius
The Connecting Women in Digital consortium met in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 9-10 September 2026 for an in-person General Assembly focused on the project’s final phase and on maximising its impact through the end of the year.
Hosted at VILNIUS TECH, the meeting brought partners into one room to review project progress, discuss Thematic Working Group outputs, assess Women in Digital Index findings and align on priorities and activities for the project’s final months.
Day 1: Strengthening pathways into digital careers
The first day opened with the consortium’s priorities for the closing phase, covering project status, remaining milestones and what has to be achieved in the final months. It then turned to the work of the Thematic Working Groups and the evidence behind women’s participation in digital education and careers.
TWG3 (Reprogramming Skills: VET as a Catalyst for Women’s Digital Transitions) set out why a job offer is not the end of a transition. Its work follows the full route from vocational training and work-based learning through hiring, onboarding, retention and progression, identifying the recurring points where transitions break down: expectations that do not match the role, onboarding that runs on unwritten rules, work structures that ignore real-life constraints, and retention risks that only become visible when someone resigns. The group also presented its work on structured re-entry and lifelong learning, starting from the observation that working lives are circular while workforce systems remain largely linear.
TWG4 presented its work on intersectional approaches, looking at how overlapping factors influence women’s participation at every stage of the digital pipeline, and at how that work connects with the group’s findings on early education and career guidance.
TWG5 (Bridging the STEM-Digital Career Gap) made the case for career guidance that is early, continuous and gender-aware, built for students aged 10 to 15 and for the counsellors who advise them. The evidence presented was direct: only 0.5% of 15-year-old girls aspire to an ICT career against 5% of boys, while girls match or outperform boys in objective digital skills tests. One-off career events raise short-term interest but do not change long-term choices.
The afternoon addressed dissemination and communications, led by 28Digital, covering how to maximise communications impact to project end, the plan for the final months, and preparations for the Annual Summit, including the TWG and Forum sessions.
The day closed with a session held together with Lithuanian organisations and initiatives, “Advancing Inclusivity in Lithuania and Europe”, presenting the 2026 Index results for the country alongside local best practices, as part of the project’s ongoing engagement with Member States.
Lithuania scored 51.3, ranking 11th of the EU27 and just above the EU average, with four of the five phases above that average and a rise of 13 places compared with 2025. ICT education ranks 7th, leadership and the enabling environment 10th, STEM education 12th, and digital employment 21st.
The discussion focused on what sits behind those positions. Women make up 47.9% of ICT master’s graduates in Lithuania, second highest in the EU, but 16.3% of ICT bachelor’s graduates, 22nd in the EU. Lithuania ranks third in the EU for girls aged 16-19 who have written code and 16th for women aged 25 and over, a fall of roughly three quarters between the two age bands. Only 11.1% of employed women hold an ICT education, and the gender pay gap in ICT stands at 25.7%. The picture that emerged is of a country that is strong at attracting and qualifying women in ICT, with the difficulty concentrated in the move into digital employment and in staying there.
Day 2: From project outputs to lasting impact
The second day opened with TWG6 (Women Shaping the AI Economy), which presented the work of its task forces on evidence and transparency, regulatory scope and systemic risk, good jobs and just transition, design and supplier accountability, and the structural barriers to reskilling faced by returners, mid-career women and workers in SMEs.
Partners then reviewed engagement with the Women in Digital Forum, working from survey and focus group feedback from members. Members value the diversity of the community, the chance to contribute through the Thematic Working Groups and the motivating effect of meeting in person. They also asked for clearer onboarding, better structured information, a central repository of outputs and good practices, more practical technology content, and stronger links to industry and funding. The session covered how to strengthen male engagement in the final months, and closed with agreement on a Forum sustainability plan to be presented in Dublin and on month-by-month Forum activities to project end.
The Index and reporting session followed, with the prototype Index data visualisation tool reviewed by partners ahead of go-live and approved for launch at the Annual Summit. Partners also discussed the structure of the 2026 Annual Report and its preliminary findings, including the conclusion that no Member State has solved the leaky pipeline and that ICT education deserves greater focus at EU level. The Data Management Plan, final deliverables, financial reporting and the actions agreed during the meeting rounded off the programme.
What next?
With the project entering its final phase, partners identified several key milestones: final deliverables between October and December, the Annual Summit in Dublin on 15-16 October, the Women in Digital Role Models event in Brussels on 16 November, preparation for the final evaluation, and the future handover of the Women in Digital Forum and its materials.
The Vilnius General Assembly therefore gave the consortium an important moment to align on its remaining work and to focus on ensuring that WIDCON’s tools, knowledge, networks and recommendations continue to support women’s participation in Europe’s digital future beyond the project’s lifetime.
