NEW YORK CITY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / March 19, 2026 / NGO CSW70 Forum Parallel Event, Global Women Leadership Summit & Impact Award Ceremony (UNCSW70), was held at the United Nations in New York. ifeng.com attended the event as a strategic media partner of the summit.
Nine major annual impact awards were presented at the ceremony, including the Global Women Leadership Award, Outstanding Achievement Award for Sustainable Development, Youth Leadership Award, Corporate Social Responsibility Award, Distinguished Women’s Charity Award, Women’s Cultural Influence Award, Award for Contribution to International Cooperation, Women’s Brand Influence Award, Women’s Brand Leadership Award and Women’s Innovation Achievement Award. The awards aim to recognize individuals and institutions that break down barriers, shape the future, and build an inclusive and equitable ecosystem.
Xiaoyan Chi, Executive Director and Senior Vice President of ifeng.com, was awarded the Global Women Leadership Award. She shared this honor with Ann Marie Davis, First Lady of the Bahamas, Dr. Padmini Murthy, a world-renowned public health expert, and Dr. Sarah Chardonnens, Professor of Educational Sciences and AI scholar at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.
Thomas Patrick Gehl, General Counsel of the World Women Organization (UNWWO) and Board Member of the Global Corporate Social Responsibility Foundation, served as the presenting guest.
The organizer’s citation for Xiaoyan Chi read: Leveraging her rich management experience in global marketing and media innovation, she has emerged as a leading figure in China’s digital media and marketing industry. As a staunch advocate of the "Business for Good" philosophy, she launched the "Influence and Aura" Global Women’s Influence Awards by ifeng.com, to promote female leadership through scholarships, recognition programs, and systemic advocacy.
She also pioneered the "Youth Bang" social design platform aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals to promote university-enterprise cooperation, and founded the "Action League", a cross-sector philanthropic platform.
Through her work, Xiaoyan Chi continues to bridge media, marketing and social responsibility, promoting women’s leadership and global collaboration in the digital economy.
In addition, Xiaoyan Chi delivered a keynote speech entitled Harmony Without Uniformity: Women’s Perspectives in the Age of AI at the event. Citing the ancient Chinese concept of "harmony without uniformity", she incisively pointed out the risks of gender bias in the current development of artificial intelligence and stated from a practical perspective that "the world begins to change when women are seen".
In her speech, Chi first highlighted a core contradiction: women have become an undeniable economic force worldwide, yet still face enormous gaps in key fields. Citing data, she noted that women globally control approximately $32 trillion in consumer spending, and in China alone, over 624 million female internet users drive more than 10 trillion yuan in online consumption. However, women hold only about 13% of leadership positions in the technology sector, and at the current rate, it will take more than 130 years to fully close the global gender gap.
She attributed the root cause of the problem to the long-standing "default settings" in human society, illustrating with cases such as car safety test dummies modeled on male bodies and medical research long centered on male cases that similar biases are being carried into the AI era.
She cited a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study which found that facial recognition systems have an error rate of less than 1% for white men, but as high as 34% for dark-skinned women. "The root cause lies in unbalanced training data," she said, adding that "technology does not eliminate bias; it amplifies it."
So how can such biases be addressed? Drawing on her nearly two decades of observations in the media industry, Chi believed that many inequalities stem from long-standing "default settings", and that telling stories and sharing experiences can change these settings.
The real question of the AI era is no longer just what machines can do, but who is shaping these systems. "We need more perspectives, more experiences, and more women’s participation, because technology will shape the future, and those who shape technology will determine what kind of future we build."
Hosted by the World Women Organization (UNWWO) and co-organized by the Global Corporate Social Responsibility Foundation (GCSRF), the summit focused on three core themes: legal and financial justice, capital accessibility and investment power, and women leading the future economy. It aimed to advance gender equality in economic empowerment and accelerate the achievement of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
Full Text of Xiaoyan Chi’s Keynote Speech
Harmony Without Uniformity: Women’s Perspectives in the Age of AI
Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,
Standing here in New York today, I’m reminded of a famous line from a Chinese TV drama many people of my generation grew up with.
It said:
"If you love him, send him to New York – it is heaven.
If you hate him, send him to New York – it is hell."
As a child, I thought it was just about New York.
Later I realized it was about something deeper: The same world can look very different from different perspectives.
And that is why, in China, we have a saying written more than two thousand years ago: Harmony without uniformity.
True harmony does not mean everyone becoming the same.
It means different perspectives learning how to build a shared world together.
When we talk about women’s development today, I often ask a simple question: What are we really trying to eliminate – difference, or bias?
The answer is clear.
We are not trying to eliminate difference.
We are trying to eliminate bias.
Research shows something important.
Across the world, women are already a powerful economic force.
Globally, women control around 32 trillion dollars in consumer spending and influence more than 70 percent of purchasing decisions.
In China alone, more than 624 million women are active internet users, driving over 10 trillion yuan in online consumption.
In other words: Women’s development is not only a social issue.
It is also one of the largest economic opportunities in the world.
And yet the picture remains uneven.
Women represent about 42 percent of the global workforce, but hold only around 13 percent of leadership positions in technology.
According to the World Economic Forum, at the current pace it could take more than 130 years to close the global gender gap.
So we face a striking contrast: Women’s potential is enormous.
But progress remains slow.
Why?
Sometimes the answer lies not in ability -but in design.
Take a simple example.
Studies show that in car accidents, women are about 47 percent more likely than men to suffer serious injuries.
Not because women are weaker.
But because for many years crash-test dummies were modeled primarily on the average male body.
A similar pattern appears in medicine.
Research in the United States shows that when women suffer heart attacks, their mortality rate can be about 50 percent higher than men’s.
One reason is simple: For decades, many clinical studies were conducted primarily on male patients.
When women are absent from research, the default human quietly becomes male.
Today, this same question is emerging in one of the most powerful technologies of our time:
Artificial intelligence.
A study from the MIT Media Lab found that facial recognition systems had error rates below one percent for white men, but as high as thirty-four percent for darker-skinned women.
The reason was simple: The training data was not balanced.
And this raises a deeper concern.
If the technologies shaping tomorrow are built from narrow perspectives, bias can be written into algorithms – and multiplied at global scale.
Because technology does not remove bias.
It scales it.
So how do we change this?
As someone who has spent nearly two decades working in global media, my answer is simple: We make women visible.
Many inequalities are not created by bad intentions.
They grow out of long-standing default settings.
But when stories are told, when experiences are shared, those defaults begin to shift.
Over the past twenty years, through Phoenix New Media and the Phoenix Global News Network, we have had the privilege of telling the stories of many remarkable women.
And these stories have convinced me of one important truth: When women are seen, the world begins to change.
Which brings us back to that ancient Chinese idea: Harmony without uniformity.
For centuries, it was a philosophy about society.
Today, in the age of AI, it has become something more: A principle for how we design the future.
So the real question of the AI age is no longer only what machines can do.
The real question is Who shapes the systems.
More perspectives.
More experiences.
More women.
Because technology will shape the future.
Who shapes technology, will decide what kind of future we build.
Thank you.
Media Contact:
Contact Person: Zhenjie Zhao
Email: zhaozj6@ifeng.com
SOURCE: Phoenix New Media
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