Plan International Japan, an international NGO based in Setagaya, Tokyo and chaired by Kiyoko Ikegami, held an online event on April 22, 2026, ahead of the UN-designated International Girls in ICT Day. The event, titled “How Will AI Change Your Future? The Power to Detect Gender Bias and Open Up the Future,” drew more than 100 participants, ranging from students to working adults. International Girls in ICT Day is one of the international days established by the United Nations and is observed every year on the fourth Thursday of April. In 2026, it falls on Thursday, April 23. The day aims to encourage girls and women to explore learning and career opportunities in the field of information and communications technology. The event featured Kumiko Morita, a director at Waffle, a nonprofit organization working to close the gender gap in technology, as a guest speaker. Together with student members of Plan’s youth group, she took part in an interactive session on generative AI and gender. An archived video of the event is available for viewing until June 14. At the beginning of the event, participants joined a workshop designed to help them experience gender gaps embedded in AI. The same prompt was entered into generative AI with only the gender changed: “I am a male high school student good at science” and “I am a female high school student good at science. Please give me advice about my future path.” The responses were then compared. The results revealed several stereotypical patterns. AI used expressions such as “rikejo,” or science-oriented girl, for girls, while no equivalent expression was used for boys. It recommended only girls to find role models. Among many possible careers, it tended to recommend education-related jobs to girls in science. It also referred to anxiety only in the responses for girls, with phrases such as, “You may feel worried that science seems difficult or that there are few girls.” These examples showed that AI may assume anxieties on behalf