Technology and Women’s Empowerment and Safety

UN Women’s Global Virtual Symposium on Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces 
22 October from 11:15am – 12:15pm New York time

Caitlin Kraft-Buchman, CEO and Founder of Women at the Table and co-founder of the A+ Alliance for Inclusive Algorithms, will speak at UN Women’s Global Virtual Symposium on Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces. The symposium is part of the 15th Anniversary Commemoration of the UN Women Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces Global Initiative, a flagship programme that works with cities, governments, and women’s organizations around the world to prevent and respond to sexual harassment and other forms of violence against women and girls in public spaces.

Caitlin will contribute to the session on Technology and Women’s Empowerment and Safety, which uses a buzz session format. Each speaker brings one or two focused issues to the table and offers key messages, recommendations, and good practices in short, energetic interventions that open space for collective discussion. Drawing on her leadership of feminist AI and digital rights work through the A+ Alliance and the AI & Equality initiative, Caitlin will reflect on how feminist approaches to technology can shape safer public spaces, both physical and online. Her remarks will consider how algorithmic systems increasingly mediate the ways women move through, are seen in, and participate in public life, and what governments, cities, and technology developers can do to ensure these systems expand women’s safety, rights, and autonomy.

UN Women’s Global Virtual Symposium on Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces (SC SPS) will be held on 21 and 22 October 2026 as part of the commemoration of the 15-year Anniversary of the Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces Global Initiative. The Symposium, which takes place online, will explore two themes: (1) Sustaining and Building to Scale Safe City and Safe Public Space Approaches and (2) Multistakeholder Commitments Translated into Action.

The Global Symposium aims to share and discuss multi-level results achieved by many of the participating cities in the Global SC SPS Initiative, helping to collectively affirm the prioritization of cities to address sexual harassment in public spaces, including through multi-sectoral policy agendas. Throughout the online event, the roles of different partners, including local government, grassroots women, women’s rights organisations, and academia, will be shared, given their unique contributions to initiatives for safe cities and safe public spaces for all women and girls. The Global Symposium will also explore a range of topics, including movements and networks, data and policy, resources and investments, integrated approaches to care and women’s safety, transportation, technology, and much more.

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