Diversity and Equal Opportunity Strategy

Dpro GmbH, Wipplingerstrasse 20/18, 1010 Wien, Austria
Adopted by the management on 16 August 2026. Version 1.0.

1. Purpose and scope

Dpro GmbH develops software and artificial intelligence systems. Two things follow from that. First, the company is responsible for how it treats the people who work in it. Second, it is responsible for how the systems it builds treat the people they are used on. This document covers both, and applies to every person working for Dpro GmbH under any form of contract, and to every product the company ships.

This strategy is published, adopted by the management, resourced, monitored and reviewed. It is a working commitment, not a statement of intent.

2. Where the company stands today

Dpro GmbH is a micro-enterprise. At the date of adoption the company has one person, the managing director, and no further employees. There is therefore no gender balance to report and no meaningful distribution to publish.

Stating this plainly is deliberate. A company of this size that published figures on representation across management levels would be describing an organisation it does not have. The measures in sections 4 to 8 are written to take effect at the point where they can take effect: the first hire, the first contract with an external collaborator, and every product decision from today onward.

3. Responsibility and resources

• Accountable person: Mohamed Alarade, Geschaeftsfuehrer
• Time allocated: a minimum of 8 working hours per year for implementation, data collection and the annual review
• Budget allocated: a minimum of EUR 500 per year for external expertise and training
• External expertise: where the company lacks in-house expertise on equal treatment or on bias in AI systems, it engages external expertise rather than improvising. The Austrian Ombud for Equal Treatment (Gleichbehandlungsanwaltschaft) is used as a free reference source

The accountable person is named because an unnamed commitment is not a commitment. In a company of this size the managing director cannot delegate this, and does not claim to.

4. Recruitment and career progression

These measures apply from the next recruitment onward.

• Job advertisements are written in gender-neutral language and state the salary or salary range.
• Selection criteria are written down and agreed before applications are reviewed, not after. Criteria invented during a process are criteria shaped by the candidates already seen.
• Applications are assessed against those written criteria only. Photographs are not requested.
• Vacancies are published in at least one channel that reaches beyond the personal network of the management, so that the company does not simply reproduce itself.
• Applications from groups underrepresented in the software industry – women, people with a migration background, people with disabilities – are actively sought. Selection remains on merit against the written criteria.
• Access to training, project responsibility and client-facing work is offered on the same terms to everyone, and is not routed through informal preference.

5. Work-life balance and organisational culture

• Work is location-independent by default. Remote work is the norm, not a concession.
• Working hours are flexible. Core availability is agreed with each person rather than imposed uniformly.
• Care responsibilities – children, ill or elderly relatives – are treated as a normal part of working life. Schedules are adjusted around them.
• Meetings are not scheduled outside agreed working hours as a matter of routine.
• Statutory parental leave entitlements are supported without disadvantage to the person’s role or progression on return.

6. Gender balance in leadership and decision-making

The company currently has a single-person management. No claim of balance is made.

The commitment is therefore forward-looking and specific: when the management or decision-making body is next extended, the company documents which candidates were considered, and records the gender composition of the resulting body. When a role of technical or commercial responsibility is created, the shortlist is reviewed against section 4 before a decision is taken.

7. The gender and diversity dimension in what the company builds

This is where a software company can make a difference that is larger than its own headcount. Dpro GmbH develops AI systems, and AI systems reproduce the bias present in the data they are trained on and in the assumptions of the people who build them. The following applies to every model, dataset and product the company ships:

• Training and reference data are examined for bias before use – whose language, whose names, whose accents, whose circumstances are represented, and whose are missing.
• Model output is evaluated across groups, not only in aggregate. A system with good average accuracy can fail systematically for one group of users. Aggregate metrics hide exactly this.
• Limitations are documented and published with the product. Where the company knows that a system performs less well for a group of users, it says so rather than leaving users to find out.
• Language handling is tested beyond the majority case – non-German names, non-Latin scripts, and users writing in a language that is not their first.
• Accessibility is treated as part of the definition of done, not as a later addition.
• Where the company produces educational or training material, examples, names and scenarios are chosen to reflect a mixed population rather than a default one.

8. Measures against gender-based violence and sexual harassment

Dpro GmbH does not tolerate harassment, sexual harassment, bullying or discrimination, by or against any person working for or with the company, including in remote and online work.

A concern can be raised through either of two routes:

• Internal: Mohamed Alarade, Geschaeftsfuehrer – eu@dpro.at
• External and independent: Austrian Ombud for Equal Treatment (Gleichbehandlungsanwaltschaft) – gleichbehandlungsanwaltschaft.gv.at

The external route exists because the internal one is inadequate on its own: in a company this small the internal contact may be the person complained about. Anyone raising a concern may go directly to the external body, and does not need permission to do so. Reports are handled confidentially and retaliation against a person who raises a concern is itself a breach of this strategy.

Where Dpro GmbH works in a partnership or consortium, this section applies to the company’s conduct within that partnership, and any concern about a partner’s conduct is raised with the coordinating organisation.

9. Training and awareness

The company runs, at minimum, one training or structured awareness activity per year, attended by all staff and by the management – the decision-makers are not exempt, because they are where the decisions are made. Topics rotate across:

• unconscious gender bias in recruitment and evaluation;
• bias and fairness in AI systems, including dataset and evaluation bias;
• recognising and responding to harassment and discrimination.

Attendance, date and topic are recorded. Where the required expertise is not available in-house, external training is purchased from the budget in section 3. Free training offered by Austrian public bodies is used where it fits.

10. Data collection, monitoring and review

The company collects sex and gender disaggregated data on all persons working for it, and reviews this strategy once per year – more often than the two-year minimum, because in a company that may double in size in a year, a two-year cycle reports on an organisation that no longer exists.

Indicators recorded at each review:

• Total persons working for the company, by gender
• Persons in management or decision-making roles, by gender
• New hires in the period, by gender
• Applicants per vacancy, by gender, where this data is available
• Training activities delivered, with date, topic and attendance
• Concerns or complaints raised, and how each was resolved
• Product releases for which a bias and accessibility check was documented

Data is aggregated and handled in line with the GDPR. Where the number of persons is too small for aggregate figures to be anonymous, the review records the situation in words rather than publishing figures that identify individuals.

First review due by 31 August 2027. Each review is written down, dated, and results in either a confirmation of this version or a revised version published at the same address, with the previous version kept available.

11. Adoption

This strategy is adopted by the management of Dpro GmbH and enters into force on the date below. It is published at dpro.at/diversity-strategy and remains publicly accessible for as long as it is in force.

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Mohamed Alarade
Geschaeftsfuehrer, Dpro GmbH
Wien, 16 August 2026