Companies pondering the incentives for increased gender diversity in their executive ranks may need to look no further than the bottom line. Having women in the highest corporate offices is correlated with increased profitability, according to a new study of nearly 22,000 publicly traded companies in 91 countries. The study, released Monday by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a nonprofit group based in Washington, and EY, the audit firm formerly known as Ernst & Young, found that despite the apparent economic benefits, many corporations are lacking in gender diversity. Almost 60 percent of the companies reviewed had no female board members, and more than 50 percent had no female executives. Just under 5 percent had a female chief executive.

In recent years, companies in Silicon Valley have been under intense focus as the call grows louder for more diverse and inclusive work environments where everyone - particularly women and other underrepresented minorities - can innovate and thrive. Intel, a Silicon Valley icon, just amplified this call with the release of its Diversity & Inclusion Annual Report, which details the company's ongoing efforts to achieve full representation of women and underrepresented minorities in its U.S. workforce by 2020.

Our society is inching toward a future when the phrase ''you code like a girl'' will be a compliment of the highest order. But there are significant hurdles before we get there. The statistics behind women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) are still far from indicating an even playing field. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, female employees fill fewer than 25% of STEM jobs - even though they make up nearly half of the overall workforce. In the startup world, just 5% of women head up their own companies. And these disheartening numbers haven't changed much in the past decade. And it's not just an American issue. Young women around the world are banding together and using technology to shatter the glass ceiling. While this isn't nearly a comprehensive list, we've examined some impactful initiatives that are inspiring women to advance within STEM careers across the globe.

Three quarters of middle school girls show strong interest in science and math, yet only a tenth will go on to continue their studies in college. The result is that they're prevented from obtaining STEM jobs and excluded from the field as well as the high pay those careers promise. To address the challenge of getting girls and women of color, specifically, interested in science, technology, engineering and math will be the focus of a new center at Arizona State University. Kimberly Scott, an associate professor in the Women and Gender Studies Department, is heading up the institution's Center for Gender Equity in Science and Technology. The mission will be to ''establish best practices for culturally responsive programs for girls of color.''

A new five-year, $500,000 grant to support two professorships for female faculty will further the University's goal of attracting women to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The grant, which was announced last week, comes from the Henry Luce Foundation's Clare Boothe Luce Program and will fund two professorships for new female faculty in the computer science and electrical and computer engineering departments at Duke. The University has committed to spending another $2.5 million to fully fund both positions.

Within the tech world, it's a known fact that women are outrageously underrepresented. Silicon Valley is notoriously full of white men, and even many of the giants of the tech corporate world reveal disappointing numbers regarding diversity in annual reports. In 2013, only 26% of computing professionals were female. But there's a shift occurring. As pushes for increased diversity - and more women - in STEM fields become stronger, more and more female students are enrolling in engineering programs and graduate studies. George Washington University's School of Engineering & Applied Science is one such institution making an impact. Its engineering graduate programs are consistently ranked as including some of the highest percentages of women in the nation. And the school's efforts extend beyond the student body; in 2013, half of all faculty hires were women. Read the profiles of several graduate students and faculty members on their efforts, STEM-focused projects and thoughts on the future of women in scientific fields.

The GIST Tech-I Competition is an annual competition for science and technology entrepreneurs from emerging economies worldwide. Aspiring innovators submit their ideas and startups online in an application consisting of an executive summary and promotional video. Their applications are then reviewed by experts and voted on by the global voting public in order to determine the finalists. Up to thirty finalists receive a trip to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), this year in Silicon Valley, to showcase their ventures and to receive intensive training. GIST Tech-I winners, selected by experts at the GES, win prizes, and receive one-on-one mentorship and training. Since 2011, innovators from around the globe have showcased their science and technology ventures to the world through GIST Tech-I Competitions. Thousands of expert reviews have taken place and the online voting public has cast over 1 million votes in support of these talented young innovators.

An ad hoc committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will produce a report designed to answer the questions ''What will the likely future products of biotechnology be over the next 5-10 years? What scientific capabilities, tools, and/or expertise may be needed by the regulatory agencies to ensure they make efficient and sound evaluations of the likely future products of biotechnology?'' The committee will
describe the major advances and the potential new types of biotechnology products likely to emerge over the next 5-10 years, describe the existing risk analysis system for biotechnology products including, but perhaps not limited to, risk analyses developed and used by EPA, USDA, and FDA, and describe each agency's authorities as they pertain to the products of biotechnology, determine whether potential future products could pose different types of risks relative to existing products and organisms, where appropriate, identify areas in which the risks or lack of risks relating to the products of biotechnology are well understood and indicate what scientific capabilities, tools, and expertise may be useful to the regulatory agencies to support oversight of potential future products of biotechnology.

U.S. companies spend millions annually on diversity programs and policies. Mission statements and recruitment materials touting companies' commitment to diversity are ubiquitous. And many managers are tasked with the complex goal of ''managing diversity'' - which can mean anything from ensuring equal employment opportunity compliance, to instituting cultural sensitivity training programs, to focusing on the recruitment and retention of minorities and women. Are all of these efforts working? In terms of increasing demographic diversity, the answer appears to be not really. The most commonly used diversity programs do little to increase representation of minorities and women. A longitudinal study of over 700 U.S. companies found that implementing diversity training programs has little positive effect and may even decrease representation of black women.

The topic of women in science and tech is inevitably personal. Author Eileen Pollack was one of the first women to get a physics degree from Yale at a time when women in science was incredibly rare. Recently, entrepreneur Angie Chang paved her own way in Silicon Valley by creating a powerful network of women. While Pollack encountered isolation, cultural biases and challenges, Chang found ways to learn and engage with a supportive community of women developers and entrepreneurs. While we know that gender diversity only addresses a small part of the overall opportunity around inclusion, we had a chance to interview Pollack, the author of The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science is Still a Boy's Club and Chang of Women 2.0 and Hackbright Academy in the latest episode of Ventured about ways to encourage women to pursue science and tech, both in school and in their careers.