What is the difference between Brussels and Dubaï ? Both cities are the two most cosmopolitan cities of the world, but Brussels, is a very fragmented with communities living next to each other with few interactions and almost no social mobility.

People from the European Commission work and stay together, the wealthy French people who ran away from the French taxes live together in the South of Brussels, while the Moroccan community is setup in Molenbeek.

With an unemployment rate reaching almost 40% among the young generation aged between 18 and 25 years old in Molenbeek, this new generation arriving in the job market is facing a lot of challenges today. One of them, is the mutation of the job market with the digitalisation and the use of new technologies, which are impacting our lives and inducing a change in the behaviors.

With almost no careers opportunities, this generation are just put aside, relegated to small jobs which offer them little value. Younsters are stuck in their district, in the same lives, living in a bubble.

What do I do in Molenbeek ? How a French women like me, who lived in different countries, coming from Paris, with a Master degree in Finance, ended up there, in Molenbeek, working with Ibrahim Ouassari, with who I co-founded MolenGeek, a man, who drop out of school at 13 year old and grew up all his life in Molenbeek.

Both entrepreneurs and passionate about new technologies. We met in the Tech scene and we had the same observation. The Tech scene is very elitist and composed of people with the same profile, who look alike, mostly white men coming from the middle and upper classes, having done higher studies. They use complicated words, talk about complex notions and create a huge distance with uninitiated people.
No women, no cultural diversity and no youngsters.
Which is a shame, because diversity make our Tech smarter. And more over new technologies, combined with entrepreneurship are a great tool to empower people in world of opportunities.

Through the MolenGeek case, we hacked the system and found a way to transform this generation to create added value for society. Thanks to new technologies combined with entrepreneurship, we found a way to activate talents, in order to bring diversity in terms of gender and culture and make to them fit into the market and therefore to contribute to social mobility.
Julie is the founder of Girleek.net, a platform that talks about new technologies to an audience of women. Girleek is breaking the stigma that only men belong in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector.

For three years, she was the Managing Director of BetaGroup, the largest tech community in Belgium. Gathering over 400 people every month for their networking events.

After one year as Community Leader in one of the biggest incubators in Belgium, she co-founded MolenGeek. This Incubator and Coding school wants to make new technologies and entrepreneurship accessible to everyone, including people with no academic background or IT skills. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx