Addressing gender issues in technology

Recent research from IDC (PDF) indicates that within the next five years, 90% of jobs in Europe will require IT skills and there are not enough skilled people on the job market. At the same time, there are few women participating in IT-based careers - more involvement from them could improve the situation (see my previous post on the European Schoolnet/Cisco research on this topic).

I've recently joined the executive committee of the European Centre for Women and Technology, a Norway-based non-profit aiming to improve women's participation in the knowledge economy and the IT industry. ECWT organises numerous activities through its member companies and organisations across the EU, including:

• The European Directory for Women in Technology, a platform for women to network, find out more about training opportunities, and for organisations looking for e-Skilled women to find appropriate candidates.
• The gender component of e-Skills Week, as well as providing the national contact points for Portugal and France
• The Code of best practices, a voluntary agreement from IT companies such as Microsoft, Google, etc. The agreement commits them to implement a range of diversity practices, including the encouragment of girls and women in education and training, implement gender neutral recruitment policies and encourage work/life balance as well as family-friendly approaches.
 

Ada Lovelace Day: Female IT engineer

On the occasion of Ada Lovelace Day, we've published an interview with Sally Buberman, a 26 year-old female IT engineer and entrepreneur from Argentina, on the European eSkills portal. It will also be covered in European Schoolnet's March newsletter.

Ada Lovelace day on Twitter and Facebook.

It's also a good occasion to tell you that there's a new organisation in Europe active in this area: the European Centre for Women in Technology.

Celebrate Ada Lovelace day by blogging

"Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Women's contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised."

I'll be posting myself on the day - 24 March 2009 - and hope you will too!

In case you've never heard of Ada Lovelace, here's a quick bio from Wikipedia:
"She is mainly known for having written a description of Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine. She is today appreciated as the "first programmer" since she was writing programs — that is, manipulating symbols according to rules — for a machine that Babbage had not yet built."
She was also the daughter of Lord Byron, a very well-known English romantic poet.

Find out more and make your own pledge.

Via Brussels Geek Girl Dinners