There are 12 Fortune 500 CEOs that are women, but none of them are in the technology field. Maybe the next generation of CEOs will change that! Read the article from CNNMoney.com.
Gender and Technology
Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Ruby on Rails Workshop
Thanks to everyone who contributed and attended the workshop this October. We hope we were successful in hosting an attitude-free, newbie-safe and mama-friendly tech event encouraging women to join the Ruby on Rails community.
Women are a minority in most technical communities, but in open source communities the numbers are even smaller — by a factor of about ten or more.
Moving forward, we encourage our newly empowered programmers to meet monthly and use their skills towards open source projects in a welcoming, collaborative, mixed gendered environment.
Click here to learn more about the Open Source Code Crunch.
Corporate Sponsors:
Individual Sponsors:
Join the pledge of over a thousand people to blog about your favorite woman techie on March 24th. You can pledge here: http://www.pledgebank.com/AdaLovelaceDay
Learn more about Ada Lovelace, the “first programmer”, here.
From the women who brought you GirlGeekDinners, BostonGirlGeeks has recently launched! Participate online by joining the Facebook Group or via Twitter at bostongirlgeek. The next dinner is planned for January 23rd.
National Symposium for the Advancement of Women in Science 2009 February 6-7, 2009 in Harvard Yard Hosted by WISHR, Women in Science at Harvard-Radcliffe.
NSAWS is an event taking place every other year organized by Women in Science at Harvard-Radcliffe (WISHR). The fifth conference is planned to take place on Harvard college campus on February 6-7, 2009. With the university-wide commitment to communication between experts in all fields, we hope to bring together a diverse group of scientists engaged in inter-disciplinary research, in line with our conference theme of “Crossing Borders.”
Since its founding in 1989, Women in Science at Harvard-Radcliffe (WISHR) has grown into a large multi-faceted organization devoted to fostering a sense of community and solidarity for the undergraduate women engaged in science at Harvard College. WISHR provides a support network and resource base in addition to fostering discussion on women s issues and providing inspiration and encouragement for those pursuing science-related careers.
The National Symposium on the Advancement of Women in Science (NSAWS) has been a significant addition to WISHR s program. NSAWS serves to raise awareness of current issues facing female scientists and to encourage women to take leadership roles in scientific fields. In the spring of 2000, the first NSAWS addressed the developing role of women in science to an audience of several hundred undergraduate and graduate students, faculty members, and professionals. Since then, NSAWS has continued to draw leaders in science from all across the nation to discuss strategies to increase women s participation in science.
See the full schedule and register here: http://nsaws.org/index.html
So what do you do when you are scheduled to attend a workshop at a conference happening locally and your babysitter goes to the hospital that morning.
Unfortunately, my babysitter (a.k.a. MIL) went to the hospital (she’s fine now, thanks) a few hours before. Not wanting to miss a class I was really looking forward to, I thought I’d try bringing Lilli and see what happened. She’s a very easy going baby and it was worth a shot since I live only 25 minutes away.
I felt very “cosmo-mom” bringing my baby to a conference. Of course, these events tend to be male dominated and I wasn’t sure how the guys would feel to have a pregnant lady with a baby in class. Russ was a little taken aback when he heard “moaning” in the back of the room during his talk but then was pleasantly tickled to discover that it was just the coos of my little girl. He should be flattered. She was engaged in his talk for over 3 hours. All in all, everyone was very kind. And while I did feel a little awkward, Lilli enjoyed herself immensely. That’s my girl!
The Massachusetts chapter of NOW is holding a one day conference in a few weeks and the keynote speaker
will address gender equity and education featuring the Exec. Dir of the Wellesley Centers for Women, Dr. Susan McGee Bailey.
Where: Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study,
Radcliffe Gymnasium, 10 Garden Street, Radcliffe Yard, Cambridge
(For directions and parking information please visit www.radcliffe. edu/about/visitors. aspx)
When: Saturday, December 6, 2008, 10 am -2 pm
Registration fee – $5 for members, students and educators. $10 for the general public
The number of women in the computer science field has been surprisingly dropping. In 2001-2002 28% of undergraduate degrees for computer science went to women, it went down to 22% in 2004-2005. Many computer science departments are reporting that the percentage is now under 10%. It is argued that the rise of male oriented video games correlates to the decline in women interested in the computer science/engineering field. Justine Cassell, director of Northwestern University’s Center for Technology & Social Behavior, has written in “Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat: New Perspectives on Gender and Gaming,” “The girls game movement failed to dislodge the sense among both boys and girls that computers were ‘boys’ toys’ and that true girls didn’t play with computers.” Another thought Ms. Cassell suggests for the drop in interest is the notion of being labeled a “nerd” or “geek” which may be unappealing to women.
Check out the full article here.
A few women at Sony Online Entertainment have created a group called G.I.R.L, Gamers In Real Life, which is a scholarship program to attract more young women to careers in game development. According to the Entertainment Software Association, 38 percent of gamers are female, spending an average of 7.4 hours a week playing. Yet, the number of women who are actually developing these games are very low.
“Though the number of women who play games is high, they represent just under 12 percent of the industry, according to the International Game Developers Association. By diversifying the work force, developers can create products that appeal to a wider audience.”
Read the full article here.
The contest for the scholarship was to design a video game, here is the winner.
A coworker just clued me in to an awesome news website called AllTop.com. The idea is to “help you explore your passions by collecting stories from ‘all the top’ sites on the web”.
The layout is extremely classy and user friendly. And clicking on the topic of women brought me to women.alltop.com with a very interesting collection of blogs. Check it out.
The website www.sciencedebate2008.com is a concerned citizens initiative cosponsored by the AAAS, the Council on Competitiveness, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine, and signed by over 175 leading American universities and other organizations, representing over 125 million Americans.
On the site you can find a very interesting PDF on the Campaign Responses to Questions from The Association for Women in Science & The Society of Women Engineers.
Choose your candidate wisely!