How to get more women into technology
Posted 16 January 2008 at 4:18PM by Ian Betteridge in IT systems and support
Last year, a friend of mine did a training course on server administration, passing with flying colours. At the end of it, the trainer mentioned, in passing, that she was the first women to take and pass the course in the whole of the UK. Given that this is a course which hundreds of people do every year, it gives an indication of just how few women there are in high-level technical careers.
That's not to say that there are no women in technology: there are, and events like the BlackBerry Women and Technology Awards give both recognition and promotion to this area. But take a look around the average IT department, and the dearth of women will be obvious to anyone. One of the underlying themes of the hit comedy "The IT Crowd" came from the conflict between the two geeky male techies and their rare female boss - and like all comedy, one of the things that made it funny was our familiarity with the situation.
Of course, the problem isn't one that's going to be solved overnight. Orienting more women towards technical careers means ensuring that enough women come out of the education system with the right qualifications, which in turn means getting girls interested in IT. But given the way that IT now permeates our lives and the lives of our children, you would hope that this wouldn't be a task that's beyond educators.
So perhaps it's time to do more than just reward those already in technical careers - and start at the grass roots, in schools and colleges.
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Tags: blackberry, bt, bt broadbandoffice, technology, women
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