Following former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao's unsuccessful suit against her former VC firm Kleiner Perkins, more women have come forward to press similar claims against the likes of Twitter, Facebook, and Microsoft. That gender discrimination persists in the tech industry is no surprise. With major companies under pressure lately to share their diversity stats, we now have a better sense of the issue's scope; solutions have been harder to reach. But with a new California law set to take effect in just a few weeks, things could finally begin to change. The legislation is designed to encourage women to report discriminatory practices, which should impel companies to be more proactive than they've so far proved. The questions now are how well the law will work, and what its impact might be beyond Silicon Valley.

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People revere successful tech entrepreneurs who have shaped the world with their innovative products and influence. Names like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are the obvious ones. Such role models have inspired many entrepreneurs to pursue their dreams. But very few of them are women. Without more visibility, the participation rate of female entrepreneurs will continue to be low. According to the study, Sources of Economic Hope by the Kauffman Foundation, for high growth firms, ''women usually account for less than 10 percent of founders in any given sample.'' An upcoming documentary called 'She Started It' is being made to illuminate more female tech entrepreneurs around the world and encourage more women to believe, ''If she could do it, I could do it!'' The film follows five young female founders on their entrepreneurial journey of struggle and triumph over the course of 2+ years. It also features interviews with experts such as Ruchi Sanghvi, the first female engineer at Facebook FB -1.66%, who also sold her company, Cove, to Dropbox.

As the nation focuses on Computer Science Education Week, December 7-13th, leading computer science curricula developers and professional development providers joined forces to announce TeachCS, a platform for high school teachers looking to broaden their computer science training and curricula. Funded by private sector philanthropy, the goal of TeachCS is to match in-service high school teachers with both computer science professional development and financial support to attend training from leading academic institutions, in order to better prepare their students for the lucrative computing jobs most in demand in the future. In its pilot year, TeachCS will provide in-service high school teachers with funding for professional development in one of three curricula - Exploring Computer Science (ECS), AP Computer Science Principles, or Bootstrap.
''TeachCS will support educators with little to no background in CS Ed who are looking to become computer science teachers. The chief requirements are the teacher's interest in learning to teach computer science and the support of the school community in the creation and sustainment of a computer science program for at least three years,'' said TeachCS Executive Director, Rob Underwood. Both requirements will be evaluated through a fellowship application to be launched in early 2016 through which any public high school teacher in the nation can apply.

All U.S. high school students should have the opportunity to take rigorous computer science (CS) courses that are relevant to their lives and their interests, courses that engage and inspire them. The new Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles (AP CSP) course is just such a course. Like the earlier Exploring Computer Science, AP CSP was designed from the beginning with equity in mind, with the explicit goal of attracting and retaining a broad range of students, especially students from those groups that are often underrepresented in computing: women, persons of color, and persons with disabilities. AP courses are popular with administrators, admissions officers, students, and parents. School administrators see them as a way to raise the academic profile of their school; college admissions officers see them as a known quantity with an established level of rigor and a standardized assessment; students and their parents see them as a way to strengthen high school transcripts and provide an economical start on college credits. The AP designation helps get CSP accepted in schools across the U.S.

Plenty of games and apps teach kids to code. But educators and toymakers are betting that teaching computer science isn't about coding at all. ''Computers have gotten so user-friendly that modern people, maybe not just kids, expect the computer to come to us,'' Gene Luen Yang, a graphic novelist and computer science teacher, told EdSurge earlier this year. ''But if you want to get into the nitty gritty of how to create new technology, you need to understand how the computer works natively.'' The proliferation of devices has made technology a ubiquitous presence in children's lives. But that does not mean they understand how anything works. Enter computer hardware toys, which hopefully build kids' understanding of how electronics function.

Workers in most industries struggle to achieve a healthy balance between career advancement and parenting. In the last year, Facebook, Microsoft and Netflix have all announced sharply improved family benefits including up to a year of leave for mothers and fathers. With these announcements, media outlets have started to declare the tech sector as the ''most radical'' on the issue. Anecdotal evidence suggests New York tech companies are not emulating their Silicon Valley rivals. A survey of local companies found some startups offer no leave at all, while others provide a very modest six to 12 weeks of paid time off. One provided parental leave only to its paid female staff.

The shortage of women in computer science and tech has been a topic of heated discussion and much teeth-gnashing. . Given that STEM careers are regularly among the highest paid and the number of STEM jobs is predicted to grow by 17% over the next ten years, there has been a movement afoot to spark girls' interest at a young age, with coding camps for girls. The latest effort? This holiday season sees a flood of new STEM toys marketed explicitly for girls. It might seem counterintuitive, given that many retailers, like Target and Disney, have begun eschewing gender labels on toys. But Adrienne Appell , trend specialist at the Toy Industry Association in Manhattan, says STEM toys for girls is a big trend. ''We named it as a major trend in 2014 and we've seen it continue in 2015,'' says Appell.

In the seven months since being named senior director of software engineering at SendGrid, Sha Ma has hired five engineers, including one female. Ma is evidence that the fast-growing Boulder e-mail firm's strategy to include all potential talent while hiring for a job is working. By leaning on Ma's network - she's led development teams at startups and Fortune 500 companies - SendGrid expanded its candidate pool and hired women it may have otherwise overlooked. Half of Ma's referrals hired for other jobs at the company also were women. Last year, SendGrid joined Silicon Valley heavyweights such as Google in sharing the gender makeup of its staff - as embarrassing as it was. Most companies reported that less than 20 percent of tech jobs were held by females, compared with the general U.S. labor force, where women make up 46.8 percent. SendGrid was at 9 percent. In an update shared with The Denver Post, SendGrid said its numbers are inching forward. While the improvement is not fabulous, its female tech workers now hold 12.3 percent of its tech jobs. Female tech leaders doubled to six, including Ma, or 25 percent of SendGrid's technical leadership. Nonwhite employees are at 18.9 percent, up from last year's 17 percent.