Computer Weekly is to highlight the roles of influential women in technology by launching a new programme this week. The publication is doing this after its successful UKtech50 awards, which highlighted the most influential people in the technology industry, featured only seven women - around 14 per cent of those nominated.

Across the globe, the technology industry is dominated by men. Men make up a large proportion of executive boardrooms and more men than women study computing at degree level. But there could be cause for optimism that times are changing and the industry is opening itself up to women. Writing for USA Today, Jon Swartz suggested that technology start-ups and angel investors are helping to promote gender equality in Silicon Valley and then, hopefully, beyond.

The creator of open source operating system Linux, Linus Torvalds, has won the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize. He shares the award with stem cell scientist Dr Shinya Yamanaka, the first time the Finland-based prize has gone to two people. They each receive €600,000 (£483,000) in recognition of their work. Organised by Technology Academy Finland, the bi-annual award aims to celebrate technological innovation that significantly improves the quality of human life.

As part of FDM Group's ongoing women in IT campaign, the international IT services provider held another successful ''Women in IT Advantage Session'' in their flagship London office. FDM's Chief Operating Officer, Sheila Flavell, led the event, which offers an opportunity for women who are interested in pursuing a career in IT to network with industry professionals to gain insight into what their professional future might have in store.

Perhaps the greatest irony of the matter of women in IT (and other technology-related fields) is the almost incessant calls for what amounts to social engineering. A desire to allow women to pursue careers in IT without hassles or roadblocks simply because they are women has given way to a drive to all but con women into technology careers in order to satisfy western egalitarian sensibilities. So what's the irony? A paternalistic upper class that looks not at individuals (women or men), but at groups.

If you're a man between the ages of 18 and 35, you used to be tech industry's most coveted prize. You were the one who decided what products failed and what products succeeded. That's why companies like Asus tweet ridiculous, sexist stuff. That's one reason why less than 10 percent of venture capital-backed companies have female founders and there is a massive gender gap in tech. The technology industry's focus on men is reflexive and all too intuitive to the men who run the companies. And it's built on a plain wrong reading of the reality of the market.

It turns out women are our new lead adopters. When you look at internet usage, it turns out women in Western countries use the internet 17 percent more every month than their male counterparts. Women are more likely to be using the mobile phones they own, they spend more time talking on them, they spend more time using location-based services. But they also spend more time sending text messages. Women are the fastest growing and largest users on Skype, and that's mostly younger women. Women are the fastest-growing category and biggest users on every social networking site with the exception of LinkedIn. Women are the vast majority of owners of all internet enabled devices-readers, healthcare devices, GPS-that whole bundle of technology is mostly owned by women.

The image of the Silicon Valley innovation in the media-the young entrepreneur, computer programmer or engineer-is often a white male geek, the kind of guy made famous by The Social Network, a dramatic account of the founding of Facebook by Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg. In the film, women are decorative, fashionable and pretty, getting drunk at parties and looking to snare-not be-the next billionaire.

When it comes to the problem of the lack of women in computing, the problem has been dissected into many different parts: recruitment, retention, gender biases, stereotype threat, simple stereotypes, attrition, biology, and countless others. The problem is that these constructs are just a bit on the fuzzy side in terms of what they mean. For instance, what does it really mean for there to be negative gender stereotypes about women and their ability to do computing? And, how does this affect how women think about their own abilities? Then, how does this translate to them choosing computing and persisting in the field? These are hard questions without simple answers.

In the UK 1.2 million people are employed in the IT workforce but just 23% is female, across the UK’s working population this figure almost doubles to 45%. To support the development of female talent in the sector everywoman is launching the everywoman in Technology Leadership Academy. The first Academy will take place on 17 October, 2012 and will feature masterclasses, a panel and inspirational speeches by key figures in technology.