Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) has become a commonplace phrase in many HR departments today, as the push for more equitable representation has resulted in higher performing companies. But while many companies have begun to acknowledge the importance of diversity, inclusion and equity, women, particularly of colour, are still significantly underrepresented in higher levels of the corporate pipeline, with many considering leaving the workforce entirely.

Key takeaways from the Canadian Women Leaders’ Digital Defence Initiative on March 25th. Co-founder Lana Cuthbertson spoke alongside MP Heather McPherson, Tamara Taggart, and Lucina Di Meco about the lived experiences and impacts of online abuse towards women leaders, as well as solutions for fighting back.

The data we collected through our @ParityBOT_NZ product showed a 10x increase in toxic tweets during election night in New Zealand. We were surprised to find such a large increase, and decided to dig into the data to find out more. Here’s what we found.

“It was a toxic work environment.”

Either we’ve heard it from a friend, or we’ve experienced it ourselves — the fact is, toxic places to work exist. How do we know they’re toxic? And why does it matter?

In 2017, I founded ParityYEG, a nonprofit organization dedicated to getting more women to run for public office, alongside some amazing women, after more than a decade of volunteering and advocating for gender equality in politics. While we all came from vastly different backgrounds and political ideologies, we had one thing in common — we wanted more women to run for office.

The Future of Work is a growing field for tech startups and a handy, shorthand way to describe what our focus is at Areto Labs. Work spaces are not physical anymore, and this past year has accelerated the shift to remote work, which essentially means, digital work. Our straightforward answer to this is our Coach product, which equips enterprise leaders with a little bot helper in their online workspaces, like Slack and Teams, to encourage engagement, communication, conversations and empathy building.