Women still make up a woefully small percentage of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) professionals. IDGE CEO Michael Friendenberg wonders if the tide will change soon.

While some women have clawed their way to the top in the male-dominated information technology sector, others continue to turn to networking and support groups for help, prompting one organisation to call for a national initiative to recruit and retain women. From HP and IBM global chiefs Meg Whitman and Virginia Rometty to Microsoft Australia's managing director Pip Marlow and Intel's newly installed Australia and New Zealand general manager Kate Burleigh, high achieving women have demonstrated that they can run the high-tech world.

Nigerian information technology (IT) practitioners met to dissect why few females students were taking up science and technology courses in institutions of higher learning and only a handful were playing active roles in the sector. Also, global leaders from the United States of America, Europe, Africa and Asia at the same time joined in a debate to define a roadmap that will help break down barriers and overturn outmoded attitudes in a bid to get more girls into technology-related studies and careers.

Although the tech industry has been dubbed a "boys club", women are slowly working their way in the door … which is fantastic! This infographic tells the whole story.

Many professors of computer science say college graduates in every major should understand software fundamentals. They don’t argue that everyone needs to be a skilled programmer. Rather, they seek to teach “computational thinking” — the general concepts programming languages employ. In 2006, Jeannette M. Wing, head of the computer science department at Carnegie Mellon University, wrote a manifesto arguing that basic literacy should be redefined to include understanding of computer processes. ''Computational thinking is a fundamental skill for everyone, not just for computer scientists,'' she wrote. ''To reading, writing and arithmetic, we should add computational thinking to every child's analytical ability.''

The White House Council on Women and Girls found that women who work in STEM fields make about a third more than women in non-STEM jobs. The council wrote that it's ''especially disconcerting'' that women make up only 25 percent of the STEM workforce, which is expected to grow by nearly 20 percent over the rest of the decade.

There�€™s plenty of talk about the need to support women in tech, and in particular math and science education for girls as they move from middle school into junior high. But for at least one high profile women in technology there�€™s a reasonable argument to be made that education should be "blind" to gender.

Girls in Tech started out as a casual meeting of industry friends interested in pow-wowing about all things tech. This meeting was meant to be a sounding board for the minority in tech women to help answer questions, address any concerns in the workplace, bounce product feature ideas off of each other, etc. We were on a mission to give female developers, designers, and marketers a voice and encourage the younger generation to embrace technology and the startup world as a viable career path.

Young children are inquisitive learners who ask an average of 76 questions per hour. They are natural scientists and engineers who learn Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) concepts through play. Research confirms that the brain is particularly receptive to learning math and logic between the ages of 1 and 4. The Globe recently reported on an amazing partnership between IBM and the Mattapan Family Service Center Head Start that is helping to spark and nurture kids’ interest in math and science. Teachers are incorporating special computer stations donated by IBM into the curriculum to great effect for the children and their families.

Women Innovate Mobile (WIM), the new accelerator aimed to help promote companies started by female entrepreneurs, is ready to debut its first class. Like other incubators, WIM provides mentoring, support, free office space, and seed funding. Participants in the program receive $18,000 to help get their companies get off the ground. Except unlike the majority of other programs, WIM requires not only that the companies focus on mobile, but also that one of the co-founders must be a woman.