National Center for Women & Information Technology

Tools for Role Modeling

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:00:00 GMT

I love your mission: how can I get involved?

This is one of the most frequent questions asked of NCWIT by K-12 educators and IT professionals alike. A great way to get involved is to mentor a young, aspiring, female technologist who would benefit from your expertise and wisdom.

For those...

New book on women robots, androids, and game avatars

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:00:00 GMT

My new book, Alluring Androids, Robot Women, and Electronic Eves, highlights the way software designers, robotics engineers, filmmakers, artists, and photographers have been fascinated by the idea of artificial women who seem alive. The illustrations -- many in color -- range from early clockwork female automatons to Lara...

PITCH 2009: Startup Competition

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Do you have a great idea for a startup? If you've saved that business plan you've scribbled on a cocktail napkin, then you should consider entering Women 2.0's Pitch 2009 Startup Competition!

Women 2.0's goal is to encourage entrepreneurial women to launch startups and, with feedback from the...

Graduate Studies at the MIT Media Lab

Fri, 5 Dec 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Interested in Creative, Cutting-Edge, Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies?

If you are thinking about going to graduate school, passionate about helping people, and interested in shaping the future of technology, consider applying to the MIT Media Lab. The Media Lab has one of the best graduate programs...

100 Recommended Resources on Gender in S&E

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:00:00 GMT

When you use Google, or a large database, to find things, you have to
decide: “Is it any good?”

I have collected about 100 recommended resources on women in science and engineering and posted them at http://momox.org/10x10.html. I call it the “10...

2009 Games 4 Girls Competition

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:00:00 GMT

ChicTech, an outreach program of the University of Illinois Department of Computer Science, extends an open invitation for college women to participate in the fifth annual Games 4 Girls Programming Competition (G4G). Students can get real-world, collaborative experience by creating new software for girl gamers. Teams from various universities...

California Dreamin', Reflections on the NCWIT Workshop at UC Irvine Nov 5-7, 08

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Holding the NCWIT Fall workshop just on the tail end of the presidential election made for a high energy event, and the focus on "Multiple Pathways to an IT Career" fits right in with the spirit of change in the air. The event kicked off Wednesday night...

"Is the United States Falling Behind Science and Technology or Not"

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Report on a Washington Forum Sponsored by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF)

On September 10th 2008, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation held a forum in Washington D.C. to address concerns that the U.S. is losing its position as a global leader in science and technology. The...

iPhone Appilcations Widen Computer Science Opportunities

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:00:00 GMT

These days, iPhone applications are rolling out as quickly as the latest karaoke video posted on YouTube. Both amateurs and seasoned software developers are cashing in.

Standford University
Standford University offers iPhone Application Programming as a computer science course this fall. There are over 80 students registered, according...

CONNECT at Grace Hopper

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Looking for a fun way to improve and expand your personal and career networks? If you're planning to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, October 1-4 in Keystone, Colorado, then make sure to sign up for CONNECT. This is an innovative new system...

The Next Level of Technology

Tue, 2 Sep 2008 19:00:00 GMT

For those of you who don't read the comics anymore, you missed a rather brilliant insight in the comic strip called "Zits" today.

"Zits" sketches the life of a teenager named Jeremy, his friends, and his parents. It chronicles Jeremy's crushes, sleep habits, prolific food consumption, apathy for household...

Do You Know a Women-led Company Seeking Funding?

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 19:00:00 GMT

There are venture conferences, and then there’s it. As the seventh-annual conference dedicated to high-growth, women-led start-ups, you might think it is about a cause. But you’d be wrong.

it is about results:

Over $425 million raised
Funding success rate exceeding 60 percent
10 exits to date, including 2 IPOs

it is designed...

Advanced Computer Science for K-12

Wed, 6 Aug 2008 19:00:00 GMT

In my reading, I have learned that many women do not take more advanced computer science classes in high school because they are not counted academically when competing for college admissions slots. Typically computer science courses, such as programming, are labeled as elective or technical art courses, which have no...

Microsoft Faculty Summit

Tue, 5 Aug 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Last week I and a number of other representatives from NCWIT member organizations attended the 2008 Microsoft Faculty Summit, at the invitation of our host and NCWIT Executive Advisory Council member, Rick Rashid of Microsoft Research. It was also great fun to see everybody, I learned a lot, and my...

NCWIT now on Facebook

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 19:00:00 GMT

NCWIT has officially entered the world of social networking with our official NCWIT Supporters Facebook Group. We encourage you to join. Just search "NCWIT" within groups. The group is open and membership is not restricted. As always, important information will always be available on the NCWIT website, but...

BlogHer 08 Conference

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:00:00 GMT

"Do you blog too?"

That is what a man asked me, as I hopped on the elevator to join the hundreds (felt like thousands) of other female bloggers for our first day of talks at the Westin-St. Francis hotel in San Francisco.

Somehow, between the munching, swag-grabbing,...

Talking Points & the Wisdom of Crowds

Wed, 9 Jul 2008 19:00:00 GMT

During the last week of June, thousands of educators, administrators, and policy-makers poured into San Antonio, Texas for the ISTE’s National Educational Computing Conference (NECC). I made the trek to represent NCWIT and introduce the first resource in our new “Talking Points" Series – a resource for parents...

Avon Micro-Grants Available for New K-12 Outreach Programs

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:00:00 GMT

I don't always read my Systers mail. It accumulates in a mailbox until I have the time to indulge myself in its wealth of information, insights, encouragement and opportunities for women, about women, by women.

During one such binge a year ago, I came across...

Sex and the City

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:00:00 GMT

A few of us from NCWIT were in New York City the last week in May to attend a much-anticipated premiere ... no, not the "Sex and the City" movie, but the release of The Athena Factor: Reversing the Brain Drain in Science, Engineering, & Technology....

Reflections on the May meetings

Wed, 21 May 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Having been out of the fray for a bit (I am currently at Oxford completing an MBA) it was exhilarating to return to the U.S. for the NCWIT meetings at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana last week. The meeting kicked off with a keynote address...

Unplug Your Computer Science Curriculum!

Tue, 13 May 2008 19:00:00 GMT

NCWIT has added another Program-in-a-Box to our resource library: Computer Science-in-a-Box: Unplug Your Curriculum. This box introduces fundamental building blocks of computer science to K-12 students -- without using computers! Computer Science-in-a-Box is designed primarily for use with kids ages 9 to 14, and its activities teach students how computers...

Tech It Out Needs Your Input

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Women in Cable Telecommunications (WICT) is embarking on a critical research project to measure the perceptions of career opportunities for women in technology, and to collect insights on women’s experiences, motivators, and career preferences in technology and potentially the cable industry.

If you are a woman working in a...

Game Design Summer Camp for Rising 9th and 10th Graders

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Thanks to a genourous grant from the National Science Foundation and support from Electronic Arts, P4Games at the Univeristy of Denver invites applications from girls going into 9th and 10th grades for full scholarships to attend our residential summer Game Design Camp.

From July...

Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:00:00 GMT

BusinessWeek has a special report out now on the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech. The report includes several features that look at groups of young technology innovators: Twentysomething Entrepreneurs, Tech's Next Gen: the Best and Brightest, Under-30, Cutting Edge, and

Anita Borg Awards: Call for Nominations

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:00:00 GMT

The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) is now accepting nominations for three of its awards: the Anita Borg Social Impact Award; the Anita Borg Award for Technical Leadership; and the Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award. The awards will be bestowed at the Grace...

An interview with Sharon Perl, Software Engineer at Google

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 19:00:00 GMT

This is the second of two interviews that Ginger Makela conducted with women technologists at Google. Ginger is a Social Media Specialist at Google and serves as NCWIT's pro-bono web strategist.

Tell me what you do...

An Interview with Lea Kissner, Software Engineer at Google

Tue, 1 Apr 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Fewer and fewer women are joining the IT field these days -- the official statistic is that there's been a 70 percent decline in the number of undergraduate women choosing to major in Computer Science between 2000 and 2005 -- and NCWIT is working to understand why that is...

"Geek Girls" Dining Out for International Women's Day

Sat, 8 Mar 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Just in time for this year's International Women's Day, a new support group for women in IT was established in Australia.

An article from iTnews reported on this group, called Girl Geek Dinners.

"Providing a group that shows you are part...

International Women's Day: Women are a Smart Investment

Sat, 8 Mar 2008 19:00:00 GMT

International Women's Day is today, and organizations in all parts of the world are celebrating in their own unique way.

Trinidad and Tobago's local theme is "Investing in Women and Girls," according to the Trinidad & Tobago Express. This theme recognizes the value...

International Women's Day-in-a-Box!

Sat, 8 Mar 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Where is your organization looking for IT leadership and innovation?

Are women playing a key role in shaping your company's future?

Is your company making the most of diversity?

Are you building on and benefiting from diverse perspectives?

Companies striving to answer...

International Women's Day Around the World

Fri, 7 Mar 2008 19:00:00 GMT

It's International Women's Day tomorrow, March 8.

All this week individuals and organizations around the globe have been celebrating the contributions of women and using this occasion to focus on improving conditions for women in social, economic, and political realms.

NCWIT is officially celebrating International Women's Day this...

Grace Hopper: Call for Participation Ends March 16

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 19:00:00 GMT

We're very excited that the next Grace Hopper Celebration in Computing (GHC) will take place right here in Colorado, October 1-4, at the Keystone Resort. If anything beats the beauty of Rocky Mountain aspens turning gold in the fall, it's the sight of 1,200+ women gathered together...

The Anniversary of ENIAC

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:00:00 GMT
On February 14, 1946, ENIAC the world's first digital electronic computer was unveiled. ENIAC stands for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer. It was the world's first operational, general-purpose, electronic digital computer, developed at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. The...

CS Majors Shaping the Future of Textbooks

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:00:00 GMT
Are you a computer science major? Your opinions are in demand.

Pearson, one of the leading education publishers, is seeking participants to serve on its Pearson Student Advisory Board (PSAB). This is an incredible professional opportunity for undergrads to earn a $1,000 stipend, travel...

TechStars: Calling All Women Entrepreneurs

Wed, 6 Feb 2008 19:00:00 GMT
A few years ago I graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with a major in English Lit. When I tell people I now work in the tech industry (and have started several successful businesses since graduation), they're often flabbergasted.

Earlier this morning a fellow female entrepreneur...

the Google 2008 Anita Borg Scholarship

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:00:00 GMT
Are you a senior undergrad or a graduate student studying computer science? Are you passionate about your work, and using computing to make the world a better place? How about a $10,000 scholarship from Google to encourage you?

The Google 2008 Anita Borg Scholarship is designed to encourage...

ChicTech's Games for Girls Competition: Enter Now!

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 19:00:00 GMT
ChicTech, an outreach program of the University of Illinois' Department of Computer Science, extends an open invitation for college women to participate in the third annual Games for Girls Programming Competition (G4G).

Registration must be submitted by January 31, 2008, at http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/g4g. Completed...

What Women Who Shun IT Really Think about IT

Sun, 6 Jan 2008 19:00:00 GMT
I caught up on some reading over the holidays. In particular, [begin link /who.staff.joanne.html]Joanne Cohoon[end link] sent me an article entitled "[begin link /pdf/Weinberger_IEEE.pdf]Just Ask! Why Surveyed Women Did Not Pursue IT Courses or Careers[end link]", by Catherine J. Weinberger. Although published in the Spring 2004 issue of the

Second Life

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:00:00 GMT
As if I didn't already have enough to do in my First Life, I logged on for a Second Life. Second Life (SL) is "a 3-D virtual world entirely created by its Residents."

It's an unusually calm winter evening when I log on for the first...

The State of Social Science Research on Gender and IT Entrepreneurship

Wed, 5 Dec 2007 19:00:00 GMT

This brief paper concludes the Gender and IT Entrepreneurship project that we conducted for NCWIT with support from the Kauffman Foundation. In this final paper, we present a high-level overview of our four summaries of social science scholarship on women's underrepresentation and the conditions that promote...

Indirect Influence

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:00:00 GMT
My mother always knew that the most effective way to get me to do something was not to force me. Commands like, "Clean your room," were never spoken. Instead, she made a challenge or a game out of any timeless chore. I had forgotten all about this indirect tactic until...

The "Truthiness" about Math and Science

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Some of you may have seen the article in today's NY Times, "Study Compares States' Math and Science Scores With Other Countries'", about a recent research report that compares 8th graders' math and science prowess in the 50 U.S. states against that of 8th graders in other countries....

Computing and the Letter P

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:00:00 GMT
We all attended the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2007 conference recently, and hats off to the Anita Borg Institute for doing such a super job of running the conference -- it was a phenomenal event. (I was general chair of the conference, so...

Generation Q

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Thomas Friedman had an interesting piece in last week's NY Times about "Generation Q" the generation of young people today whom he calls The Quiet Americans and why they both impress and baffle him. Friedman explains that this is a generation imbued with an improbable sense...

Emerging Technologies and the Emergence of Women

Wed, 3 Oct 2007 19:00:00 GMT
I spent Tuesday and Wednesday last week at EmTech '07 -- the Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT -- a conference produced by Technology Review. The conference included an extraordinary number of interesting women, including the CTO of Xerox, and I was pleased to be a presenter...

Sowing the Seeds of Future Innovation

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Is the U.S. ceding its position as the most innovative country on the globe?

To the degree that innovation depends on a domestic population that is well educated in innovation's building blocks computer science and information technology then the answer is yes. Interest in studying these fields has...

Digital Art Culture

Tue, 4 Sep 2007 19:00:00 GMT
I am an experimental multimedia artist, student, and teacher living in Denver, CO. My latest artistic pursuits are a combination of various mediums including still image, video, sound, sculpture, light, and performance. Most recently I have been collaborating with another female artist, Heidi Higginbottom, to choreograph audio/visual performances...

Asking Provocative Questions

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Last week Ben Worthen, who writes the Wall Street Journal's Business Technology blog, posted a provocatively titled piece called, "Do Women Hate IT?" NCWIT provided some statistics and a few quotes for his post, which he ended with the question, "Why do you think women...

Tech Support for Family Members

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Earlier this month my husband and I packed up ourselves and our sons and headed off to Texas: first to Dallas, and then a long drive over to east Texas, where my folks live. We know what is in store for us -- aside from seeing family, eating, playing...

Kicking Off the Diversity & Innovation Caucus

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:00:00 GMT
There is a new U.S. House of Representatives Caucus focused on Diversity and Innovation, something we are quite happy about. In fact, NCWIT had a hand in its formation.

Back in May 2006, along with the National Science Foundation (NSF), we co-hosted a Town...

Noob, and Other Words Worth Thinking About

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 19:00:00 GMT
On a recent Sunday, I was listening to my husband and brother-in-law talk incessantly about World of Warcraft.

I was just starting to get frustrated by the conversation when, between the "there's dozens of gankers outside Karazhan" and "the DRUID just ninja'ed another blue," I...

Gender Beneath the Surface

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 19:00:00 GMT
I'm a school psychologist who has been taking computer classes part-time for the past four years. I'm the mother of two daughters, so I have a personal interest in the area of women in technology. Last semester, I took two graduate courses - Human Computer Interaction and Ubiquitous Computing. There...

NCWIT Heroes

Tue, 3 Jul 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Over the weekend, I got the chance to listen to a couple of the NCWIT Heroes interviews that Brad Feld turned me on to a while back. Good stuff. The interview with Elaine Wherry (co-founder of Meebo.com) was great, as was the...

Gotta Have IT!

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 19:00:00 GMT
The NCWIT K-12 Alliance deployed its first project this week: we gave away 4,000 Gotta Have IT resource kits at the 2007 National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in Atlanta, Georgia. The conference, sponsored by ISTE, attracts more than 18,000 K-12 educators from around the world....

the Broader Engagement Initiative: Now Accepting Applications

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Applications for grants to participate in the SC07 Technical Program under the Broader Engagement Initiative are being accepted through Friday, June 29. The SC Broader Engagement (BE) initiative is aimed at broadening the engagement of individuals from groups that have traditionally been under-represented in high performance computing.

NCWIT and the GI Bill Legislation Rollout

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:00:00 GMT
It's rare to find a situation when one issue before Congress can be solved or aided by another issue, but that's what has happened in recent months.

In the quest to increase the number of women and underrepresented minorities that work in the field of Information Technology, NCWIT has proposed a...

A First-timer's Perspective

Wed, 30 May 2007 19:00:00 GMT
On May 15-16, NCWIT held its bi-annual meetings at its home base here in Boulder, Colorado. More than 250 members of NCWIT's Alliances, Social Science Advisory Board, and Board of Directors joined with participants of the NSF's Broadening Participating in Computing program for...

XX Chromosomes in Silicon Valley

Tue, 22 May 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Every few months, a reporter, blogger, or columnist knocks on meebo's door and invites one or all of us to share our experiences about being an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. We've talked about the early days brainstorming at California Pizza Kitchen, the day our lone meebo server almost...

Fighting for FIRST

Tue, 15 May 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Hello!

We are the Green Grinches, FIRST robot team 1624 and Girl Scout troop 1201. We began robotics in the sixth grade in the First Lego League (FLL). That year we won third place for most robust design, our second year we won second place for most...

Keeping Female Faculty in the Sciences and Engineering

Tue, 8 May 2007 19:00:00 GMT
In 2005, Harvard President Larry Summers speculated that innate gender differences may explain why fewer women than men reach top university science and engineering positions. Summers's remarks caused a firestorm of criticism that eventually cost him his job.

I co-authored a study of women in academe that was...

The Reverend John E. Brooks and Mentoring

Tue, 1 May 2007 19:00:00 GMT
I'm not one to shed tears over Business Week magazine. In fact, over decades of reading it, I can't recall a single time I even got misty-eyed over it. But when I was on the plane returning from California a few weeks ago, I was finishing up the...

The Computing Educator Oral History Project

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Inquiring minds often wonder: How did she get to be what she is? How do women's career pathways differ from those of men? It was questions like these, during the 2003 SIGCSE Technical Symposium in Reno, Nevada, that led to an exciting project: The...

Infoworld's Report on Women Leaving IT

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Recently InfoWorld did a special report on women and IT, called, "Why are Women Exiting IT Professions?" The article series discusses the advantages of gender diversity, the importance of getting girls interested at the K-12 level, and the traits of women leaders in IT. It also...

The View from Abroad

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Living and spending my sabbatical in Sweden for more than six months has allowed me to gain a different perspective on a variety of issues in computer science, including those related to gender equity.

Sweden is facing many of the same issues that we face in the U.S. regarding...

The Power of Nice

Tue, 3 Apr 2007 19:00:00 GMT
I am on the plane returning from New York City and the thing that is most on my mind are the wonderful people we meet as we reach out and share the NCWIT mission with others. On this trip, Avis Yates Rivers (NCWIT Board member),

Gender Diversity at Web Conferences

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Every few months, the blogosphere addresses the matter of gender diversity of speakers at conferences about design, technology, and the web. The latest such incidents revolved around the lack of women speakers at the Future of Web Apps conference in San Francisco last September* and the

Girl Game Devs

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Hi everyone, I'm Camille Dodson, and I make video games. NCWIT recently contacted me after hearing about my activities, so I'm writing here to share a bit about myself and my goals as a woman in IT.

I grew up on things like Super Mario Bros,

Why Women Are Brilliant at IT

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Instead of agonizing over why there aren't more women in IT, it might be more interesting and more fruitful to ask: Why are women so brilliant at IT? I ask the question because I know, have employed or interviewed, so many outstanding women in IT, and it always amazes me...

Women Entrepreneurs and Networking

Tue, 6 Mar 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Our fourth and last literature review for NCWIT, supported by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, is now available. As in the other reviews, we examine what social science research tells us about the reasons for the small percentage of IT entrepreneurs who are women. For this review, we...

Women Entrepreneurs and Access to Financial Capital

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Women are much more likely than men to self-finance their business. Rather than go into debt or sell shares, women commonly use personal savings, earnings from the business, home equity loans, credit cards, and family loans to finance their business. In this third in our series of articles for NCWIT...

The Role of Psychological Factors and Gender for IT Start-ups

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 19:00:00 GMT
The second in our series of entrepreneurship reports is now online. On behalf of NCWIT and The Kauffman Foundation, we have been exploring what the social science literature tells us about why there are so few women entrepreneurs in the IT field. This review considers psychological...

IT Start-ups: Where are the Women?

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Why do women receive less than five percent of the funding to start IT firms? Why do they lag behind men in patenting IT ideas and moving their ideas out of the university and into the marketplace?

On behalf of [begin link /]NCWIT[end link], and with support from the...

Women and Wages

Tue, 6 Feb 2007 19:00:00 GMT
I had the pleasure this week of teaching a one-day session on entrepreneurship at Wellesley College, as part of a three-week course called Management Basics offered to Wellesley students and taught, in part, by the many devoted alumnae like me ('82) who so enjoy being on campus and...

A Girl's First Java Class

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Recently, Lucy Sanders of the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) had lunch with Sun's "Succeeding @ Sun as a Woman Engineer" (SASWE) networking group. Lucy talked about NCWIT's mission to ensure that women are fully represented in the influential world of information technology and computing. I came...

The Kuwait Conference of Women Leaders in Science, Technology and Engineering

Tue, 23 Jan 2007 19:00:00 GMT
I recently had the pleasure of participating in the Conference of Women Leaders in Science, Technology and Engineering, in Kuwait, January 8-10. The conference was hosted under the patronage of Kuwaiti Prime Minister H.H. Shaykh Naser Mohammad Al-Sabah, and co-hosted by the Kuwait Institute for Scientific...

Women & IT Entrepreneurship

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 19:00:00 GMT
As of 2006, according to The Center for Women's Business Research, there were about 7.7 million majority-women-owned (51 percent or more) businesses in this country, accounting for nearly one-third of all U.S. businesses. In the last decade, in fact, women-owned firms have grown at more than...

Creating Your Own K-12 Outreach Program

Tue, 9 Jan 2007 19:00:00 GMT
Women in Computing group members from Indiana University, Rice University, and the University of Colorado at Boulder are organizing a workshop at SIGCSE 2007 to help administrators, faculty, staff, and students create their own K-12 outreach program. We will share our experiences...

IT's Need for the Feminine Touch

Tue, 2 Jan 2007 19:00:00 GMT
A friend recently sent me a copy of a report from IT advisory firm Cutter Consortium entitled "The Defeminization of IT."

The report highlights the trends that form the basis of NCWIT: girls are not choosing educational paths in IT, and women who have are leaving in droves....

Holiday Gifts: the Gorillapod

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 19:00:00 GMT
If you came up short while shopping for your techno-geek or gadget-hound this year, or if you'll be returning merchandise for a credit and you're wondering how to spend it, we've got a suggestion: the Joby Gorillapod.

We stumbled across this gadget while surfing our favorite blogs, and...

Best Buy's ROWE Endeavor

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 19:00:00 GMT
The blog I wrote on the problem with the phrase "work-life balance" really struck a chord. It was picked up by the Boulder Daily Camera, and the following week I was stopped on campus and elsewhere around Boulder by people who said they really agreed...

Some things learned at NCWIT

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 19:00:00 GMT
I attended the NCWIT meetings at Georgia Tech in Atlanta just before Thanksgiving, and came home with a bounty of new thoughts, ideas, and information. I heard about programs that people are trying in different places, how they are trying them, and what early results they are...

Education: Perspectives on Girls, Boys, and the Need for Improvement

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 19:00:00 GMT
Americans are in danger of losing their competitive edge in the world economic system. This idea seems to have widespread, bipartisan support, which is rarely heard of in Washington these days. Despite the recent focus on this burgeoning issue, there seems to be little agreement about the solution....

The Problem With "Work-life Balance"

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 19:00:00 GMT
The phrase "work-life balance" has become a ubiquitous term in most lexicons and it yields about 2 million hits on Google. For many, and I used to be one of them, the phrase connotes fair work environments in which employees enjoy happy, stress-free lives with their...

Meeting the New Boss: Outlook for Technology Policy in the Next Congress

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 19:00:00 GMT
The outcome of last week's election is now clear with the Democrats taking over the legislative branch. The dust, however, is far from settled. Democrats have the opportunity to make a profound and lasting impact on technology policy. What shape this will take is unclear, because much of it will...

ChicTech's Games for Girls Programming Competition

Thu, 9 Nov 2006 19:00:00 GMT
ChicTech, an outreach program of the University of Illinois' Department of Computer Science, extends an open invitation for college women to participate in the third annual Games for Girls Programming Competition (G4G). Applications must be submitted by December 22, 2006 and completed projects are due...

Programming: Why Not?

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 19:00:00 GMT
One of the common explanations for the falling enrollment in CS, among women in particular, is "programming." The frequently repeated story is that students think that computer science is only about programming, and they don't like programming, so they don't enroll in computer science. I've had a couple...

Moderating the Atlas Speaker Series "Diversity and Technology" panel

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 19:00:00 GMT
IT is changing the very foundations of our society. By "IT," we mean information technologies in the broadest sense everything, really, about computing and the use of information.

IT is changing:

The way we communicate ANYTIME, ANYMEDIA, ANYPLACE

The way we work ANYWHERE

Who can participate and access information ...

The Geek-girl Invasion

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 19:00:00 GMT
When nearly 1300 geek girls invaded San Diego on October 4, their mission was not hostile. In fact, a more ebullient invading force would be hard to imagine.

From October 4th through the 7th, San Diego was the site of the latest Grace Hopper Celebration of Women...

5 Reasons Veronica Mars is a Good Role Model for Girls

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 19:00:00 GMT
A couple weeks ago, I saw Paris Hilton on the "Today" show saying that she thought she was a good role model for girls: "I think I am a good role model, and a lot of mothers come up to me and they're really happy ..."

I'm sure most...

Why Don't Women Network More?

Tue, 3 Oct 2006 19:00:00 GMT
Whether you are a man or a woman, networking is hard. Who enjoys walking into a room full of strangers? What does one possibly talk about to someone who seems just as absorbed with the vegetable platter? If you are a woman, why does it seem easier...

Improving the Image of IT

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 19:00:00 GMT
The computing community has an image problem. This is not news to long-time readers of this blog - or indeed, anyone who has followed coverage of IT-related stories in the popular press. Dropping enrollment rates and dropping interest in computing are pretty good signs...

The Supply and Demand of Diversity

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 19:00:00 GMT
I was excited to share the stage at the Google Faculty Summit with Lucy Sanders and her CS colleagues and flattered to be a former literature professor in a sea of engineers and scientists.

I understand my fellow panelists' concern that young women are increasingly underrepresented among CS majors and,...

Bring IT On!

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 19:00:00 GMT
Members of the Women in Computing group at Indiana University (WIC@IU) created a unique and interactive K-12 outreach program in 2004 that was inspired by Carnegie Mellon's Women@SCS Roadshow. We called our program Just Be because our overarching theme is that people...

Creating the Next Generation of Creators

Tue, 5 Sep 2006 19:00:00 GMT
Recently I met with the director of youth activities at a local community center in Seattle. We were sitting together in the center's new computer facility, home to twelve work-stations, discussing ideas for a future program to teach computing skills to high-risk girls. I had been working at the center...

Competition: Do Women Have What it Takes?

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 19:00:00 GMT
BusinessWeek has a special report this week on What Makes a Winner." My favorite feature of this report is the How Competitive Are You? poll. BusinessWeek surveyed 2,500 middle managers and executives at U.S. companies, aged 25 years and older, about competitiveness:...

The Microsoft Faculty Summit

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 19:00:00 GMT
A few weeks ago I had the honor of attending the Microsoft Research Faculty Summit in Redmond, Washington. Microsoft's Faculty Summit is an important annual gathering, and normally Bill Gates opens the event. This year, however, Microsoft decided that a plenary panel should kick things off....

Getting Scientists and Congress to Mingle

Tue, 1 Aug 2006 19:00:00 GMT
One of the most effective "tools" of the science advocacy community, in making the case for federal support of science, iswell, scientists. Occasions in which researchers are able to sit down with Members of Congress and discuss their own work do more to advance the cause of science than five...

GNOME's Outreach to Women

Mon, 24 Jul 2006 19:00:00 GMT
Slashdot recently had an interesting thread about GNOME's decision to launch a Women's Summer Outreach Program after they received 181 applications for Google's Summer of Code program, but none from women. To encourage more women to join their development community,...

IT in Iceland

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 19:00:00 GMT
My family just finished a great vacation in Iceland. I can describe this wonderful country in a nutshell: it's truly unspoiled, has considerably more sheep than people, and possesses all types of terrain. But I'm not really intending to write...

Technology Summer Camp

Thu, 6 Jul 2006 19:00:00 GMT
The first three weeks of June are always a favorite time for me. That's when the ATLAS Institute at CU Boulder teams up with the Denver Public School system's Computer Magnet Program to host the DigitalCUrrents summer technology camp. Nine boys...

Old Photos

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 19:00:00 GMT
It was wonderful to have Fred Gluck as our NCWIT blog author last week. Fred is a long-time advocate for technology and diverse thought, working tirelessly in K-12 education in Boulder schools. In an odd twist of fate, just as Fred was writing to us at NCWIT...

Girls and Math: What Works

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 19:00:00 GMT
I've been volunteering in the Boulder Valley School District for the past 15 years, working with students in the areas of math, science, and computers at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.

Four years ago, when my math enrichment groups were boys and girls together, the 3rd grade group...

Innovation and the Role of Diversity

Mon, 12 Jun 2006 19:00:00 GMT
What do technical innovation and diversity have to do with one another? Very little, apparently, if you follow the press coverage of our nation's current competitiveness debate. Innovation legislation drafted in the U.S. Congress seems to consider the issue of diversity and innovation a relative...

Yoda, Magic, and Yoda's Magic

Wed, 31 May 2006 19:00:00 GMT
"Try not.
Do...or do not.
There is no try."

- Yoda, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

So, how cool is Industrial Light & Magic? ILM is a Lucasfilm company and you know their movies - Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Mission Impossible,...

Interesting Exchanges

Wed, 24 May 2006 19:00:00 GMT
I spent the last two days at the National Academies in Washington, DC, attending the National Center for Women in IT bi-annual meeting. It was a really interesting meeting, as always.

Probably the most exciting part of the meeting was the power-packed Town Hall, jointly...

Big Shoes

Sat, 20 May 2006 19:00:00 GMT
I always wake up early when we are close to our NCWIT semi-annual meetings -- so much going through my mind. What will the conference program look like? How will our conference guests get through security at the National Academies? Is there going to be enough food?...

The Girls in Math and Science Initiative

Fri, 12 May 2006 19:00:00 GMT
The Secretary of Education recently announced an initiative on Girls in Math and Science. My first reaction: "Hooray!" My second reaction: "Too bad there's still a need for this."

As we all know, there is.

Though, while women are still significantly under-represented in the technical workforce, the...

Microsoft's $1 Million NCWIT Grant

Sun, 7 May 2006 19:00:00 GMT
On Friday, Microsoft announced that it had donated $1 million to the National Center for Women & Information Technology. I was at Seattle University at the Future Potential in IT seminar where this was announced and got to say a few words on behalf of NCWIT to the 500...

Risky Business

Wed, 3 May 2006 19:00:00 GMT
The number of women who are starting IT companies, taking out patents in the IT field, or transferring ideas for development is very small. Exact numbers are not easy to come by, but there is a belief that perhaps fewer than 10 percent of IT entrepreneurs are women. ...

A High Note

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 19:00:00 GMT
I've always wanted to see the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, so when Sam Kamin asked me to give a keynote at their Mom's Day event on April 7, I eagerly agreed to go. I was not disappointed: the countryside is beautiful and the drive from Chicago was peaceful...

Contextual Experiences, Flexible Knowledge

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 19:00:00 GMT
Our approach at Georgia Tech's College of Computing focuses on the needs that Dr. William Aspray emphasized in his blog here, based on the recent ACM Globalization report: the need to prepare undergraduates to have "flexible knowledge," and for curricula to take "an interdisciplinary approach."

All...

Real, Real Science

Fri, 7 Apr 2006 19:00:00 GMT
In an article entitled "Girlie Science," the author makes mention of a recent University of Leeds study showing that boys and girls have very different interests when it comes to science.

According to the study, which surveyed British 15-year-olds, "the responses of the boys reflect...

Activism

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 19:00:00 GMT
The last week has been a blur -- full of what can only be called a mosaic of contrasting experiences, like the light REM sleep one goes through early in the morning hours. I must tell you about it. Perhaps you can help.

With the assistance of NCWIT Board...

Art and Computer Science: A Double Life

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 19:00:00 GMT
In 1991, the year I turned forty, I came out of the closet as an artist. I'd been painting as long as I could remember but I had hidden it from my professional colleagues except for a few close friends.

I thought it was hard enough to be taken seriously...

Plans for Business, Plans for Life

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 19:00:00 GMT
I was very pleased when NCWIT asked me to share some of my experiences in starting an IT business in a primarily male-oriented landscape. When my business partner, Char, and I started Solidware, our intent was to make a difference a big difference.

Yes,...

SIGCSE 2006

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 19:00:00 GMT
Last week, 1,200 of my colleagues and I attended the 37th annual ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education -- sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group in Computer Science Education, or SIGCSE -- in Houston, Texas. I have been attending SIGCSE for the past...

NCWIT: Poster Child

Tue, 7 Mar 2006 19:00:00 GMT
The moral: Great minds are justifiably the most difficult to impress; but once an impression is made, a world of opportunity opens up.

The lesson: February 10 brought NCWIT staffers to a breakfast for National Science Board members visiting the University of Colorado, Boulder. CU provides...

The New Offshoring Report's Good News for Women in IT

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 19:00:00 GMT
Last week, the ACM Job Migration Task Force released a report on Globalization and the Offshoring of Software. The report did not explicitly discuss the impact of offshoring on women in developed countries who were already pursuing IT careers or were considering study for an IT career. Nevertheless,...

Prime Real Estate for NCWIT

Tue, 21 Feb 2006 19:00:00 GMT
Take a look at this! What you are looking at currently under construction is the ATLAS Center, soon to be home to most of the core staff of the National Center for Women & Information Technology. In fact, the NCWIT "cluster" is directly inside...

Good Intentions, Poor Execution

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 19:00:00 GMT
I wanted to hear about "Saving the World with a CS Degree." I eagerly anticipated this talk because someone was going to tell undergraduates about the link between computing and helping people. A former student would describe his experiences with creating information technology to serve humanity. He had lived in...

Women as Influencers and Innovators

Tue, 7 Feb 2006 19:00:00 GMT
Recently Lucy came up to my neighborhood in Westchester County, New York. While we have met frequently this past year, much of our work and interaction occur over email, so I was excited about showing her around my neighborhood.

I met Lucy at the White Plains train station, a 35-minute...

The Brewing "Storm"

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 19:00:00 GMT
Several months ago I asked my friendly congressman whether he thought the middle of America's bell curve realizes that the U.S. ranks below average for 21 industrialized countries in math and science education.

He looked rather startled, so I went on: even when our advanced students are compared to those of...

Beauty and the Geek

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 19:00:00 GMT
It's not often that my husband insists on turning on the TV at a particular time. Sports events - that's about it. But he recently stumbled onto a new show Beauty and the Geek and he's become a born again TV fan. Last night, he...

NCWIT's Expanding Network

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 19:00:00 GMT
Lucy Sanders, CEO of NCWIT, and I spent a wonderful day in New York City in December 2005. Two things stand out in my mind about the day (before we even met on Central Park South). One, it just happened to be the coldest day of the year...

Converged Communications, Converged Memories

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 19:00:00 GMT
I was reminded about the wonders of technology, especially converged communications, on a recent trip to New York City. Early one morning, I boarded the train from Grand Central Station to White Plains to meet up with Kay Cioffi, President of TexZen Partners, an enterprise development and strategic marketing...

Recognizing Women's Accomplishments: Past, Present and Future

Tue, 3 Jan 2006 19:00:00 GMT
As head of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology I have the opportunity to recognize and celebrate the achievements of incredible women who are changing the face of technology today. Two months ago at our annual Women of Vision awards ceremony we recognized three women:...

Historical Parallels

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 19:00:00 GMT
On my recent long plane ride back from Italy, I read When Old Technologies were New: Thinking about Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century , by Carolyn Marvin. In this book, Marvin explores how two inventions the telephone (near and dear to my heart) and the...

The Future of IT

Wed, 7 Dec 2005 19:00:00 GMT
A central focus of my work as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Technology Policy during the late 1990s was preparing American workersespecially scientists, engineers and technologistsfor jobs in the new economy. Today, with enormous changes afoot in the world of information technology (IT), preparing Americans to compete and win in...

Games 4 Girls

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 19:00:00 GMT
ChicTech, an outreach program of the University of Illinois Department of Computer Science, is extending an open invitation for college women to participate in the second annual Games for Girls Programming Competition (G4G).

Designed to encourage the development of computer games that appeal to middle- and high-school aged...

NCWIT's 'Jam Packed' Practices Workshop

Mon, 21 Nov 2005 19:00:00 GMT
Every year, NCWIT has two national meetings. Last week (November 17th and 18th), we held our inaugural NCWIT Practices Workshop, coincident with our Alliance meetings, at Carnegie Mellon University. We had most of our meetings in Newell Simon Hall, a beautiful building home to the university's ...

How Encouragement Fosters Curiosity and Growth

Wed, 9 Nov 2005 19:00:00 GMT
I recently had a conversation with a friend who told me her daughter has declared that she hates math -- and she's only seven years old! This got me thinking that the challenge for parents is to help their kids keep an open mind about the subjects they like...

Revolution, Evolution & Innovation

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 19:00:00 GMT
In my role at NCWIT, I have wonderful opportunities to talk to people all over the United States about technology and innovation. As a technologist and innovator myself, I love this part of the job. September brought together several thought processes for me that I am only now...

Competitiveness and the Global Gender Gap

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 19:00:00 GMT
For years, science and technology professionals have tried to bring attention to the lack of gender equity in the important fields of information technology (IT) and computing. Now, ten years after the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women recognized the need to promote gender equity around the world, the "gender...

An Executive Mom's Wish List

Wed, 5 Oct 2005 19:00:00 GMT
Recently I spent hours watching HBO's Six Feet Under so I could catch up before the series finale aired. As an Executive Mom, the innovation of "On Demand Television" has definitely enhanced my life. I now have access to hundreds of high-quality, fun, educational programs for my children....

Katrina and Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 19:00:00 GMT
By now we've all seen the devastation that Hurricane Katrina has wrought on hundreds of thousands of people, who are now slowly beginning to recover their broken lives. One recovery effort about which the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) is deeply concerned is the attempt of thousands of college...

Why the NCWIT Board Chair is a Man

Tue, 6 Sep 2005 19:00:00 GMT
The most common question I've received over the past year, regarding the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), is "why is the board chair a man?"

When I agreed to be chair, I anticipated that people would ask me this question. What I didn't realize was that it...

Hurricane Katrina

Thu, 1 Sep 2005 19:00:00 GMT
Dillard University students camp out. Courtesy Greg Pearson/The Shreveport Times

I feel the need to post a short message about Hurricane Katrina.

Two members of our NCWIT community, Dillard University and Xavier University, have sustained heavy damage, and the worst may be yet to come. Please click here for...

The Road Ahead for Wal-Mart

Wed, 17 Aug 2005 19:00:00 GMT
It's been a long time since I visited Arkansas. Growing up in Louisiana we would wander up there from time to time, but it's been quite a while since I spent any quality time in "The Natural State." As my plane touched down at Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport,...

SpeechTek Innovations

Mon, 8 Aug 2005 19:00:00 GMT

On August 2nd, I attended SpeechTEK along with associates from Gold Systems.

SpeechTEK is focused on leading-edge speech technologies such as natural language recognition, business applications that utilize speech (like password reset), speaker verification, and customer service. Donald Peterson, CEO of Avaya, gave the keynote for the...

Navigating the Road Ahead

Mon, 1 Aug 2005 19:00:00 GMT
On July 29th, 2005, NCWIT Board member Avis Yates Rivers and I went to visit the Vanguard Group in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Deb Denis, who is responsible for IT diversity within Vanguard, had arranged for our visit to talk to over 50 IT managers concerning the declining number of...

Title IX

Wed, 20 Jul 2005 19:00:00 GMT
For all of the problems that his remarks revealed and engendered, Larry Summers deserves thanks for catapulting the issue of women's under-representation in math, science and technology to a level of nationwide attention it has never before received. We should capitalize on this attention and on the commitments...

Testimony before the House Subcommittee on Education Reform

Wed, 6 Jul 2005 19:00:00 GMT
On June 28, 2005, Sarah Revi Sterling (pictured, at right, with Rep. Lynn Woolsey), Senior Manager of Microsoft's University Relations and Chairperson of National Center for Women & Information Technology's (NCWIT) Workforce Alliance, testified before the House Subcommittee onf Education Reform's hearing on "How the Private Sector...

Work + Life: Finding the Balance

Mon, 27 Jun 2005 19:00:00 GMT
The ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado at Boulder is an agile, campus-wide catalyst for multidisciplinary curriculum, research, and outreach involving the content and tools of Information Technology. As Executive in Residence for ATLAS, one of the things I do is help coordinate and lead a three-week...

NCWIT's May Meetings

Fri, 10 Jun 2005 19:00:00 GMT

NCWIT has just completed another busy, engaging, and productive round of semi-annual Alliance Meetings (held May 24-26 in Washington, D.C.) where we covered a range of topics.

We reviewed the NCWIT high-level messaging and progress.

We learned about organizational change from a slate of experts.

We committed...

Innovation: the Key to America's Future

Mon, 6 Jun 2005 19:00:00 GMT
The National Medal of Technology, managed by the Technology Administration of the U. S. Department of Commerce, is the highest honor that the President of the United States awards to American innovators. These Medal Laureates are true stars. Their contributions drive our economy, enhance our lives, maintain our competitive...

Math, Science, & Engineering: Key to U.S. Competitiveness

Fri, 20 May 2005 19:00:00 GMT
In the post 9/11 world, the Iraq War and threats to homeland security have dominated Washington's national security debate. Fears of terrorist attacks and weapons of mass destruction riveted the attention of policy makers. But now come signs that America's political leaders are finally turning their attention to a chronic...

Being a Mentor

Sat, 14 May 2005 19:00:00 GMT
In the not too distant past, I was asked to do an NPR interview on women and mentoring. It got me thinking in specific terms about what mentors "do," and ultimately led me to conclude that we use the word "mentor" far too casually. Often, as mentors, we...

Computer Science: the Perfect Storm

Tue, 3 May 2005 19:00:00 GMT
I'd like to encourage some speculation about one of the world's great incongruities.

Computer Science is a great field. It's supremely creative. It's changing our lives, driving our economy, and transforming the conduct of science, engineering, and many other fields. It's projected to be the source of 70%...

Image and Impact

Fri, 22 Apr 2005 19:00:00 GMT
In the US and Canada (and in many other parts of the world) the image of computing careers and computing professionals discourages many talented young people, especially women and minorities, from choosing to study computer science. For at least the last decade the computing profession has been widely viewed by...