Hi everyone, we look forward to seeing you at the NCWIT Summit on Women and IT in Portland, Oregon next week! We’ll be releasing several new and updated resources at the Summit, and we thought we’d give you a preview here. You’ll find more new resources at our website, here. Our new report on women and entrepreneurship is getting lots of attention! NCWIT Senior Research Scientist Joanne Cohoon worked with Vivek Wadhwa and the Kauffman Foundation to deconstruct prior research on the demographics of successful entrepreneurs, and look at how – and whether – gender is a factor. Download it now. * * * * * * * * * We’re launching several new practices this month, including this one with a case study from Harvey Mudd College. A few years ago Harvey Mudd implemented an introductory computing course for all students that featured a broad, revamped curriculum, and in response the percentage of women computer science majors rose from below 20% to nearly 50%. Download it now. * * * * * * * * * Does your company want to increase the number of women in its technical ranks, but doesn’t have a plan for how to do it? “Strategic Planning for Increasing Women’s Participation in the Computing Industry” is a new resource from NCWIT Pacesetters that provides a blueprint for sustained increases in women’s participation. This workbook tells you how to:
create a vision for women’s participation identify specific and reasonable goals choose relevant interventions and activities coordinated to reinforce each other select metrics for determining whether the goals are met
Download it now. * * * * * * * * * NCWIT Senior Research Scientist Joanne Cohoon this week released a paper reflecting more than 40 years of data on authorship of ACM conference papers, and describing women’s contribution to this important aspect of computing professional life. The data show that women’s authorship increased substantially over time, from 7% in 1967 to 27% in 2009. In addition, they show that “relative to their representation in the likely pool of ACM conference paper authors, women publish at higher rates than one might expect from their representation among Ph.D.-holders. In 1967, women’s representation among authors was about 4 points greater than among doctorate degree recipients; and this overrepresentation persisted in most years to about the same extent.” Read more about it here. * * * * * * * * * Summer is nearly upon us, and it’s a great time to think about summer camps and other programs that can encourage girls to participate in computing. Now is the time to check out NCWIT’s new resource, “Offer Computing Workshops and Camps: They Benefit Both Students and the Teachers Who Offer Them,” produced with input from the K-12 Alliance. Get it now at www.ncwit.org/summercamps. Have a terrific weekend!