Last year's Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) was a huge success! 18,000 people from 81 different countries joined us in Orlando, Florida for three days of learning and networking, making this the biggest GHC yet. They also had over 800 speakers, all of whom are dedicated to shattering perceptions and supporting women in tech. And don't forget the hundreds of organizations that participated in our Career Fair and Expo. With so many great opportunities available, it's no wonder GHC earned a 95% approval rating from attendees.

The WiDS Datathon is a new feature of the WiDS conference for 2018, and will take place February 1-28, 2018. Winners will be announced at the WiDS Stanford conference on March 5, 2018. The WiDS Datathon is a joint effort with InterMedia Survey Institute, a grant recipient of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in their Financial Services for the Poor program, as well as Stanford ICME, Intuit, Kaggle, and West Big Data Innovation Hub. The data has been collected by InterMedia to alleviate global poverty by learning how to help the world's poorest people take advantage of widely available mobile phones and other digital technology to access financial tools and participate more fully in their local economies. InterMedia's Financial Inclusion Insights program includes annual nationally representative surveys on financial behaviors and attitudes in eight countries in Africa and Asia. This competition seeks to encourage women data scientists to engage in social impact solutions by participating in a predictive analytics challenge.

The Internet Association told lawmakers this week that its new campaign aims to ''improve diversity and inclusion in the tech industry.'' A key voice for Amazon, Facebook, Google and other tech giants in the nation's capital is kicking off a new initiative to try to diversify the industry's predominately white, male ranks. For years, Silicon Valley and other tech hotspots around the country have faced constant condemnation for failing to hire and retain employees from underrepresented groups. Among the critics is the Congressional Black Caucus, a powerful group of lawmakers that has even threatened regulation if tech doesn't make major changes. In response to that political pressure, a key lobbying group for the industry, the Internet Association, told lawmakers this week that it would create a new role to focus on those issues - and kick off a campaign that aims to ''improve diversity and inclusion in the tech industry.''

College-bound women are less likely to enter specific fields because of the gender discrimination they are likely to encounter in those fields, finds a new study published in the American Educational Research Journal by Joseph R. Cimpian. College-bound women are not less likely to enter specific fields because more math or science is required, but rather because of the gender discrimination they are likely to encounter in those fields, finds a new nationally representative longitudinal study published in the American Educational Research Journal. Women are often underrepresented in many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors and some non-STEM majors, such as philosophy and criminal justice. Rather than dividing majors into STEM and non-STEM, this new study looks beyond the STEM/non-STEM dichotomy to understand the underlying attributes of majors that may attract or repel women - in an effort to learn how to achieve gender equity in all fields.

Coding is a vital component of tech education, but it won't be enough to sustain the next generation of workers. With a rapidly evolving tech world, employees will require continuous training in basic digital skills, according to Sundar Pichai. The Googlechief executive explains in an opinion piece published Thursday by NBC News THINK that the notion of getting a traditional education that will provide a lifetime of job skills is a remnant of yesteryear.

When Americans are asked why more students don't pursue a degree in science, technology, engineering or math (STEM), they are most likely to point to the difficulty of these subjects, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. About half of adults (52%) say the main reason young people don't pursue STEM degrees is they think these subjects are too hard. Policymakers and educators have long puzzled over why more students do not pursue STEM majors in college, even though those who have an undergraduate degree in a STEM field of study earn more than those with other college majors - regardless of whether they work in a STEM job or a different occupation. Yet only a third of workers (33%) ages 25 and older with at least a bachelor's degree have an undergraduate degree in a STEM field, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis.

The 38th National Future of Education Technology Conference is organized between 23 Jan and 26 Jan 2018. The 38th National Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC 2018) will take place at Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida USA. It is going to be a trendsetter Conference, outstanding as one of the most cutting-edge meetings within the Education, Learning, Teaching, Education Technology and Digital Education aspects.

As women remain underrepresented in fields of STEM, how do we begin to close the gender gap and inspire the next generation of female innovators and leaders? At a time when technology continues to rapidly transform the way we live, we can and should work to empower more young women to take an active role in that transformation. In that spirit, Forbes partnered with Audi of America in 2017 to launch the inaugural ''Idea Incubator,'' a program dedicated to inspiring future generations of female STEM leaders while also bringing together emerging talent to ideate around solving for real-world challenges through a STEM lens. Students from the New York University Tandon School of Engineering were tasked with developing solutions to a critical issue facing women and girls today - access to reliable, safe and affordable transportation. The winning team of students was presented with the first ''Audi Drive Progress Grant,'' a $50,000 scholarship to propel their studies.

The demand for new thinking skills to serve the new knowledge based economy has become critical, and while K-12 and some universities are looking at what teachers teach and how students learn to assess their readiness, the education system is still too far behind for most high-tech companies. For many years, H-1B visas, allowing corporations to seek the best and brightest from around the world, outsourcing and off-shoring alleviated the problem of getting the workers companies needed. But time is not on their side. In the wake of globalization and the spread of technology, the demand has gotten more acute. Now, with the sophistication of artificial intelligence and robotics, the need for creative and innovative employees has dramatically heightened. Indeed, a recent study by Oxford Research reported in the MIT Technology Review, we are witnessing ''Tectonic Shifts in Employment (where) information technology is reducing the need for certain jobs faster than new ones are being created.'' They found that ''nearly half of all jobs are vulnerable to machines - to applications using information technology.''

Teaching computer science in K-12 schools - and even making it a curriculum requirement - is not just a lofty idea anymore. Schools around the country really began to embrace computer science in 2017, with a number of states moving forward with legislation to make it a mandatory subject. Advocates who have long been fighting for change said the hard work is finally paying off, and more achievements are ahead in 2018. Read the highlights from several states' efforts in 2017 to fold computer science into the curriculum.