Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Twitter Inc., Snap Inc. and about two dozen other major technology companies are banding together to focus on improving workplace diversity and strengthening the pipeline of underrepresented workers in Silicon Valley. The Catalyze Tech coalition, which was announced Thursday, aims to hold its members accountable for improving the representation and experience of women, people of color, first-generation college graduates and the LGBTQ community in the tech industry. Thirty-one companies and a group of nonprofits and researchers signed on to a 116-page report outlining their commitments to overcoming disparities in the tech sector. To join the effort, the companies agreed to follow four main recommendations, such as recognizing diversity as a business imperative and working to improve the pipeline of young talent. They also have to consider equity concerns throughout their vast businesses, including suppliers, product design and hiring practices. The companies are trying to build on the progress made by corporate America last year in the wake of widespread outrage over a police officer’s murder of George Floyd. Since then, dozens of companies have pledged to hire more minorities and promote more of them into management roles. Some firms have reached out to historically Black colleges and universities while others allocated billions in support of programs to improve the lives of Black people.

Marie A. Bernard, MD, is the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity (COSWD). As COSWD, she leads the NIH’s program to build the science of workforce diversity, to disseminate that science, and to act on the evidence. Dr. Bernard also co-leads NIH’s UNITE initiative to end structural racism. You can read about her vision for diversity, equity, and inclusion in science and about how she’s using her unique role to catalyze institutional culture change.

All of the 2021 Nobel Prizes in science were awarded to men. That’s a return to business as usual after a couple of good years for female laureates. In 2020, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna won the chemistry prize for their work on the CRISPR gene editing system, and Andrea Ghez shared in the physics prize for her discovery of a supermassive black hole. 2019 was another year of all male laureates, after biochemical engineer Frances Arnold won in 2018 for chemistry and Donna Strickland received the 2018 Nobel Prize in physics. Strickland and Ghez were only the third and fourth female physicists to get a Nobel, following Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert-Mayer 60 years later. The rarity of female Nobel laureates raises questions about women’s exclusion from education and careers in science and the undervaluing of women’s contributions on science teams. Women researchers have come a long way over the past century, but there’s overwhelming evidence that women remain underrepresented in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and math. Studies have shown that those women who persist in these careers face explicit and implicit barriers to advancement. Bias is most intense in fields that are dominated by men, where women lack a critical mass of representation and are often viewed as tokens or outsiders. This bias is even more intense for transgender women and nonbinary individuals.

AWIS is celebrating 50 years of advocating for women in science on Thursday, October 28 from 2-3 p.m. EDT. Join them for a virtual program featuring keynote speaker Dr. Marie A. Bernard, Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity at the NIH.

The 2021 Nobel Prize winners in the categories of physics, chemistry, physiology and medicine have been announced and none of the winners are women. AWIS congratulates the new Nobel Laureates on their recognition, however we are deeply concerned about the lack of diversity among the recipients. “This feels like a giant step backward following last year’s Nobel Prizes when three women were recognized.” said Sandy Robert, CEO of AWIS. “AWIS would like to create a list of women scientists doing groundbreaking research so we can bring more recognition to their work.” Send your recommendations to awis@awis.org. The Nobel committees tend to award prizes years after discovery. This practice continues to put women and minorities at a disadvantage. The farther back that the committees look, the pool of women and minorities will be smaller due to systemic biases that have caused these scientists and their work to be overlooked. Despite these challenges, there are women researching, designing, and discovering innovative solutions. This year alone, many women scientists were recognized for their contributions in combatting the pandemic.

Last year, women represented only 25.2 percent of the nation’s computer and mathematical workforce even though they accounted for 46.8 percent of the overall U.S. workforce, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And when it comes to Fortune 500 CIOs, CTOs, and CISOs, women comprised only 22 percent of the top tech positions last year, according to Boardroom Insiders’ 2021 report. But despite such a low percentage of women in tech leadership roles, some companies like Momentive, Intuit and Workday have managed to onboard leadership teams of 30 percent or more who are women. Here are a few strategies to implement on your own team.

Inspired by the critical need to advance innovation by correcting underrepresentation in computing, the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) launches a webinar series, with support from the Infosys Foundation USA, to address the absence of women as developers, leaders, and researchers shaping the future. The monthly, six-part Broadening Participation in Computer Science (CS) Education webinar series will inform K-12 formal and informal educators, and high school and college students about building partnerships with school counselors and librarians, identifying key research findings and recommendations relevant to K-12 educators, getting involved with NCWIT programs, and much more. Registration is now open to the public for the first episode, “Inspired by Youth: A Discussion with High School and College Students Who Build Local CS Communities,” airing October 11, 2021 at 6:00 p.m. ET.

Women are increasingly enrolling in online learning courses and earning STEM certificates during the pandemic, according to the latest Women and Skills Report from Coursera. Women now make up 52% of new registered users on the e-learning platform in 2021, compared with 47% in 2019. In terms of course enrollments overall, women have nearly reached parity, at 49%, compared with making up just 42% of total enrollment in 2019. The narrowing gender gap in online learning comes at a time when women have been disproportionately sidelined at work during the coronavirus outbreak. Despite economic recovery in many job market sectors, millions of women remain unemployed or underemployed due to their overrepresentation in in-person service jobs disrupted by Covid-19, as well as ongoing child care challenges over the last 18 months. Unemployment figures also exclude the 1.6 million women who’ve been pushed to drop out of the workforce altogether since February 2020. But the growing share of women upskilling and reskilling through online learning could be an encouraging sign about the future of women in the workforce, says Betty Vandenbosch, Coursera’s chief content officer.

Alana Karen wrote the “Adventures of Women in Tech: How We Got Here and Why We Stay” to diversify the stories we hear of women navigating their careers in tech. With a clear message of ‘you belong in tech’, she continues to explore that narrative. You can join her as she speaks in-depth with seven women about the challenges and joys we’ve found in our careers and what’s next both for us and the world around us.

Women in the AI field are making research breakthroughs, spearheading vital ethical discussions, and inspiring the next generation of AI professionals. We created the VentureBeat Women in AI Awards to emphasize the importance of their voices, work, and experience and to shine a light on some of these leaders. In this series, publishing Fridays, we’re diving deeper into conversations with this year’s winners, whom we honored recently at Transform 2021. Check out the interview with the winner of the AI research award. When you hear about AI ethics, it’s mostly about bias. But Noelle Silver, a winner of VentureBeat’s Women in AI responsibility and ethics award, has dedicated herself to an often overlooked part of the responsible AI equation: AI literacy. “That’s my vision, is that we really increase literacy across the board,” she told VentureBeat of her effort to educate everyone from C-suites to teenagers about how to approach AI more thoughtfully. After presenting to one too many boardrooms that could only see the good in AI, Silver started to see this lack of knowledge and ability to ask the important questions as a danger. Now, she’s a consistent champion for public understanding of AI, and has also established several initiatives supporting women and underrepresented communities.