It could be but 'recognition' is also correct.

Whatever the first step is, it must be a noun. Any noun will do. Present participles and infinitives can always be used as nouns. Hence "recognizing" and "to recognize" would both work in your example. Any noun will give you a grammatically correct sentence. Let's use "chocolate" as an example: The first step is chocolate. People need to start eating chocolate because it has such magical properties.