When Suchada Hnoonpakdee’s mother moved from her home in northeast Thailand to the capital city of Bangkok, she bore a weight that no child should have on their shoulders: at the tender age of 13, the fourth child of her family, she took on different odd jobs to send money back home.
“As a little girl, she was feeding her whole family of nine children,” explains Suchada. Sitting in a tiny alcove at the United Nations Conference Centre, she had just addressed over 600 diplomats, private sector partners and young changemakers on “AI Innovations for Gender Equality” at the Asia-Pacific Regional Commemoration of International Women’s Day 2025 organized by ESCAP and UN Women
Suchada lights up as she talks about her mother, but there is a hint of sadness in her eyes. Her mother never completed her formal schooling, but despite facing unimaginable hardships, she prioritized education above all else for her daughters.
“I'm the first graduate in my family. I chose software engineering because at the time, not only did I think it would be an empowering tool, but because of the availability of full scholarships,” she says.
Defying the ‘leaky pipeline’
Women continue to hold less than 25 per cent of science, engineering and information and communications technology (ICT) jobs globally. In Asia and the Pacific, only eight out of 20 countries report a female STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) workforce above 40 per cent, according to a United Nations Development Programme study.
Imagine a pipe carrying water but somewhere along the way, leaks cause some of the water to escape before reaching the end. This is the “leaky pipeline” effect where many women and underrepresented groups leave STEM fields at different stages of their careers. These leaks can result from a range of systemic barriers like bias, lack of support or workplace challenges, preventing their full participation and advancement
As a software engineer and social impact entrepreneur, Suchada is on a journey to traversing these challenges: “I like programming. I like technological innovations. It allows me to make things possible.
“Whatever ideas you have, you can code and make it a reality. And that's what I find so empowering. You can be anyone behind a screen, but with this ability to code and program, you can do so much.”
AI: Aid or Impediment
“Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is going to impact our world of work, but that impact is not going to be uniform across all jobs,” explains Trisha Suresh, the head of public policy for LinkedIn South-East Asia, where research shows how different categories of jobs will be affected – insulated, augmented or disrupted.
Insulated jobs can be doctors, nurses, mental health practitioners, drivers, farmers, athletes, dancers or more, which are largely immune from the impact of GenAI. Similarly, jobs like software engineers, web designers, user experience designers, data analysts and others may be augmented by the use of this form of AI. Finally, the third category of jobs may face some disruption due to GenAI’s ability to replicate some of the skills required, Trisha explains, like customer service representatives, legal associates, administrative assistants and more.
The research found that women were more highly represented in jobs that GenAI could disrupt, whereas men were more likely to have jobs that were insulated.
At the same time, Trisha stresses the importance of skills-based hiring, especially in emerging fields like artificial intelligence, where the pool of formally qualified talent may be limited. With this approach, talent pools can increase by as much as 11 times in Asia and the Pacific. For women, this means a 24 per cent increase in talent pipelines for women in AI roles.
“A skills-based approach to hiring can build a more agile, more inclusive and more empowered workforce,” Trisha underscores.
Hope for the future
Across Asia and the Pacific, young people are stepping into the spotlight, leading the charge for change.
Paphatpoom “Dee” Buakamsri, an undergraduate student at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, believes that youth must be at the forefront of bringing about sustainable change towards equality, as the future belongs to them. Passionate about making a difference, he was deeply impacted by Trisha’s words on AI’s gendered impact.
“When you think about it, a majority of people who control AI are men. We need to strive for more women leaders in these emerging fields, so as to mitigate the damage it could have on more and more vulnerable groups,” he adds.
As one of these young women leading the charge in STEM, Suchada says lack of representation is a systemic barrier, something easily internalized. But through this arduous and often lonely journey, community makes the path easier.
“I think a lot about whether my work would matter in the end. It's just a small part of the world after all. But then I try to focus on what really matters – the people around me, my community. When you narrow down to that impact, it makes every day more fulfilling.”
