The Graphene Study is a component of the Graphene Flagship that aims to build a tightly integrated community and to create new direct communication channels between young and experienced researchers in the field. Registration for the workshop is now open.

Facebook is launching a new effort to expose more students and their parents to the promise of computer science as part of the company's broader push to increase the ranks of underrepresented minorities in tech. TechPrep will offer resources in English and Spanish to help young people and their parents or guardians explore how to get started in computer science, the jobs available to programmers and the skills required to become a programmer.

Fullstack Academy, one of the top coding boot camps, is launching a second school, but unlike many coding schools, this one will focus solely on training women interested in entering the tech field. Grace Hopper Academy, as the school is called, is the latest effort by the tech industry to close the gender gap between men and women in tech roles. Though Grace Hopper Academy is not the first coding boot camp designed with diversity in mind, it is the first such school to offer to teach women how to program and not charge them a dime until and only if they secure a tech job.

One of the barriers facing many women seeking to advance in the tech industry is the lack of a good network. Not the digital kind, the 'foot in the door' kind. Companies all too often hire from pools of job candidates who already have connections, and in an industry that's predominantly male, that means more men have easier entre. For everyone else, especially women, they're left depending on luck. Now Google is backing a way to change this. The nonprofit Anita Borg Institute today is unveiling its ABI.Local program in conjunction with the first day of its annual Grace Hopper Celebration - the world's largest event for women in computing. The idea is to help women technologists in cities around the world connect with each other locally to build the networks that will help build their ranks in the tech industry.

Computer science has for the first time become the most popular major for female students at Stanford University, a hopeful sign for those trying to build up the thin ranks of women in the technology field. Based on preliminary declarations by upper-class students, about 214 women are majoring in computer science, accounting for about 30 percent of majors in that department, the California-based university. Human biology, which had been the most popular major for women, slipped to second place with 208. If more women majored in technological fields like computer science, advocates say, that could help alleviate the dearth of women in engineering and related professions, where many practitioners draw on computer science backgrounds.

Coding boot camps - the short, immersive programs that tech tech skills quickly - are booming. Earlier this September, LinkedIn researcher Link Gan analyzed the phenomenon and found that, in 2011, fewer than 100 LinkedIn members indicated that they had graduated from a boot camp. By 2014, that number has surged to 8,000 and is expected to double - 16,000 graduates - by the end of 2015. Gan also made a bold prediction: Such boot camps, where women make up an average 40% of graduates, may close the coding gender gap. Two of the 10 programs he listed as having above-average representation of women boast enrollments that are more than 50% female: HackerYou, based in Toronto (65.1%) and Tech Talent South (TTS), based in Atlanta (53.5%).

At this time when there is widespread concern that U.S. students are not prepared for a changing economy that relies on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), parents of nearly seven in 10 children who participate in afterschool report that their child's program offers STEM learning opportunities, according to a household survey commissioned by the Afterschool Alliance. A special report released, Full STEM Ahead: Afterschool Programs Step Up as Key Partners in STEM Education, finds broad support among parents (70 percent) for providing STEM learning in afterschool, and high satisfaction (80 percent) with afterschool STEM offerings among parents of children in programs that provide this education. Findings from the new report are based on responses collected for America After 3PM from 30,000 U.S. households, including in-depth interviews with more than 13,000 parents and guardians. More than half of parents with children in afterschool (53 percent) say STEM was an important factor in choosing their child's program, the new report finds, and parents report that STEM activities are offered more often in urban than in rural and suburban programs.

Research suggests that men and women are assessed very differently at work. Specifically, managers are significantly more likely to critique female employees for coming on too strong, and their accomplishments are more likely than men's to be seen as the result of team, rather than individual efforts, finds new research from Stanford University's Clayman Institute for Gender Research. Those trends appear to hold up whether the boss making the assessments is male or female.

Two Silicon Valley giants are taking strides toward diversity this week, with Apple adding James Bell, an African-American business executive, to its board of directors while Dropbox has hired Judith Michell Williams, an African-American woman formerly with Google, to serve as its global head of diversity.

During EU Code Week, 10 - 18 October, hundreds of thousands of people - children as well as adults - will celebrate creating with code. Check out some EU Code Week videos.