Alana Karen wrote the “Adventures of Women in Tech: How We Got Here and Why We Stay” to diversify the stories we hear of women navigating their careers in tech. With a clear message of ‘you belong in tech’, she continues to explore that narrative. You can join her as she speaks in-depth with seven women about the challenges and joys we’ve found in our careers and what’s next both for us and the world around us.

It’s now long overdue for women thriving in technology to be the norm, rather than the exception. The numbers still highlight the frustratingly long battle we’ve got ahead of us, with The European Commission estimating that only 17% of IT specialists are female. In 2019, a staggering 91% of tech investment in Europe went to all male-founded teams. There are a number of components that contribute to this gender chasm in the tech sector, but one thing we know for sure is that fixing the problem starts long before an imbalance in the boardroom. Untangling systemic issues is challenging, but it’s clear that from a young age children absorb countless cultural ideas about who they are, based on their gender. From TV shows to books, toys to dressing-up costumes, young children are persistently bombarded with distinct notions of ‘boy’ and ‘girl’. For example, The Institution of Engineering and Technology found that 31% of STEM toys are listed as items ‘for boys’, whereas only 11% are ‘for girls’. Similarly, a number of studies have found that when asked to draw a scientist or mathematician, girls are twice as likely to draw a male figure than a female one, while boys almost always draw men (usually donning lab coats and glasses, epitomizing their narrow perception). The gendered messaging that children unconsciously digest is clearly both powerful and damaging. It becomes what is known in psychology as the ‘stereotype threat’: where negative stereotypes feed into an individual’s inhibiting doubts, which then have a direct and negative impact on their performance. The stereotype threat dampens enthusiasm and belittles self-confidence by telling children that their biology will dictate their abilities, pursuits and choices in life. For girls, this is hugely detrimental.

New data highlight minorities and women in science, along with one particularly understudied group: scientists with disabilities. Academic science is much more diverse than it was a generation ago, even if it still has a ways to go. That’s according to a new report on women, minorities and people with disabilities from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics at the National Science Foundation. The share of academic jobs held by female doctorates in science, engineering and health fields increased from 26 percent in 1999 to 39 percent in 2019. Underrepresented minorities hold more of these jobs now than in 1999, but their share - 9 percent - is still “considerably less” than their share of the population, according to the NSF. By comparison, underrepresented minorities make up one-third of the U.S. The share of academic scientists with one or more disabilities also increased over the same period, to 9 percent. Their share of the general population is about 11 percent. Numerous equity and inclusion advocates within the sciences said they welcomed the NSF's report, which helps shed light on historically excluded groups within the sciences, particularly on one understudied group: scientists with disabilities.

The #SheTransformsTech Report highlights how women are transforming technology and outlines a new global tech agenda led by women. These are some of the key findings and recommendations released today in the #SheTransformsTech report, an in-depth collection of data-driven insights, personal narratives, and visionary solutions released by global social network World Pulse.
At the beginning of the global COVID-19 pandemic, World Pulse surveyed grassroots women leaders and marginalized communities from around the world on key technology issues and opportunities. Their responses reaffirm dire statistics that show that about half of the world’s women remain offline and are globally underrepresented as users, makers, and leaders in the technology industry. These inequities have only been compounded by the pandemic’s rapid digitization. The #SheTransformsTech report highlights actions that policymakers, tech companies, and governments must take to make technology work for women, sourced directly from those who are most impacted. The report’s release coincides with Girls in ICT Day and is backed by a coalition of 27 partners, including EQUALS, Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL), World Wide Web Foundation, Vodafone Americas Foundation and international women’s rights networks. The #SheTransformsTech report is the culmination of a year-long campaign and includes: Analysis of more than 530 responses from 60+ countries (400+ survey responses; 130+ personal narratives). Key findings and recommendations for policymakers, tech companies, and individuals related to digital empowerment, technology access, online safety, and more. Stories from women, in their own words, on how they utilize tech for good and how tech can do better to support women’s leadership. Special highlights on the impact of COVID-19 on technology access and use; improving access for those with disabilities; and advancing digital skills training.

Advising for Future-Ready Careers is a monthly webinar series, hosted by NCWIT Counselors for Computing (C4C), providing information and resources to help counselors join the front line of the computing conversation. This webinar series is free and open to the public, ages 16 and up - geared toward School Counselors, Educators, graduate students, and those in school advising roles. Advising for Future-Ready Careers is funded by the Department of Defense STEM (DoD STEM) seeking to attract, inspire, and develop exceptional STEM talent across the educational continuum.

Newly released data shows that women-founded startups raised just 1% of investment in Central and Eastern Europe. 5% went to mixed-gender founding teams, while all-men teams raised 94%. Commissioned by European Women in VC, Experior VC, and Unconventional VC, Funding in the CEE region – through the lens of gender diversity and impact highlights venture capital allocations and leadership, as well as performance of women-led startups in CEE. “As a young and dynamic ecosystem, CEE has the opportunity to learn from the successes and slip ups of established hubs, and leverage the untapped potential and returns of building diverse and inclusive founder communities. There’s a very long way to go, but we hope that with transparency, open conversation and radical action, we can reach it together. These findings give us the starting point, and the first step on the journey,” says Thea Messel and Nora Bavey, General Partners at Unconventional Ventures. The report brings a fresh perspective on the venture capital market in the CEE region, with a gender lens. While female founders are still a minority, and they get just a fraction of the capital men get, women founders perform much better when looking at the revenue to funding ratio. In capital productivity, women outperform men by as much as 96%.

Higher education pipeline suggests long path ahead for increasing diversity, especially in fields like computing and engineering. Black and Hispanic workers remain underrepresented in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) workforce compared with their share of all workers, including in computing jobs, which have seen considerable growth in recent years. The representation of women varies widely across STEM occupations. Women make up a large majority of all workers in health-related jobs, but remain underrepresented in other job clusters, such as the physical sciences, computing and engineering. Current trends in STEM degree attainment appear unlikely to substantially narrow these gaps, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of federal employment and education data. Black and Hispanic adults are less likely to earn degrees in STEM than other degree fields, and they continue to make up a lower share of STEM graduates relative to their share of the adult population. And while women now earn a majority of all undergraduate and advanced degrees, they remain a small share of degree earners in fields like engineering and computer science – areas where they are significantly underrepresented in the work force.

This March, as many women across the country still grapple with the impact COVID-19 has had upon the workforce within the past year, a new study revealed the devastating effects the pandemic has had on women in the tech workforce. It comes as no surprise that women in male-dominated careers are already at a stark disadvantage when it comes to securing equal pay and opportunities as their male counterparts. In fact, as we observed Equal Pay Day this month, a day that symbolizes how far into the year women must work in order to earn as much as their male colleagues did the year before, it is as blatantly evident that we are far from making the progress needed to close the gap. In an effort to shed light on gender disparities that are rampant within the workforce, Girls in Tech, a global nonprofit that works towards erasing the gender gap in tech, conducted a survey among their members nationwide on how they have been coping during the pandemic. The organization released their findings in their 2021 study, “The Tech Workplace for Women in the Pandemic” which unearthed an alarmingly high rate of burnout among working women with male bosses.

The 2021 vNCWIT Summit is free and open to the public. Get ready for conversations, Q&As, on-demand videos, and more! Connect with educators, entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and social scientists from across industries and disciplines. Fully immerse yourself in research-based recommendations and peer-to-peer discussions to further your efforts in creating inclusive cultures.

Over a third (38%) of women working in the IT and tech industry claim that a lack of females in the sector made them wary of entering the profession, according to Kaspersky’s latest Women in Tech report, Where are we now? Understanding the evolution of women in technology. Highlighting the importance of role models in the quest for gender diversity in the technology industry, the research also found that only 19% of women currently working in the sector were encouraged to take up a role in IT or technology by a female role model. The research, involving 13,000 men and women working in IT, found that almost half of women (43%) had to find their role through their own research. A further third (33%) were encouraged into tech during their education thanks to their school, college or university. These results show early signs of change at the grassroots stage, but that a current lack of female representation is still a key barrier to achieving a diverse workforce.