Elaine Weyuker Accepts 2008 Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award

Congratulations to our co-Chair, Elaine Weyuker on becoming the winner of the 2008 Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award! The Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award is given to a woman who has inspired the women’s technology community through outstanding technological and social contributions. This year’s winner, AT&T Fellow Elaine Weyuker, has had a career of firsts: She was the first woman to receive a doctorate in computer science from Rutgers University; the first female faculty member at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU; and is the only female AT&T Fellow. A leader in the software-engineering research community, Dr. Weyuker specializes in software testing, reliability assessment, metrics and measurement, and empirical studies; and is a fellow of both ACM and IEEE, and a member of the US National Academy of Engineering. The Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award is underwritten by Cisco.

Handing Over(Past Ambassador: Vashti Galpin)

Since I have come to the end of my term as the ACM-W ambassador for South Africa, I'd like to recap some highlights and introduce my successor, Cecille Marsh.

I've been in this role since 2000, and with the assistance of Hlami Huhlwane (who was then a second year Computer Science student at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg), we developed the first of the ACM-W ambassador websites. I focused on statistics (which were quite hard to get, and to get permission to use -- the situation is much better now, in fact there are too many to choose from!), programs for women in computing and women in science and technology in South Africa, and literature about women in computing in South Africa, which I knew a fair deal about because I was doing research in the area. The website has been updated at least yearly since then.

The things that really stand out for me when I look back are the two panels the ambassadors presented at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in 2002 and 2004. They were wonderful and gave the ACM-W ambassadors an opportunity to meet as well as to pass on information about women in computing in their countries. My impression was that the audience who were mostly North American really appreciated the opportunity to get an international perspective and we had many questions on both occasions.

I also had the opportunity to mentor three undergraduate female Computer Science students (Hlami, Kego and Debashree) when I employed them to work on the website, and I believe this benefited both me and them.

Dr Cecille Marsh has now taken over the role of ambassador and I'd like to tell you about her and her research. She is Associate Director in the School of Information & Communication Technology of Walter Sisulu University in East London. East London is a small city on the southern coast of South Africa. The rural areas around East London are extremely poor and many of the students at the university come from impoverished backgrounds and have attended under-resourced schools.

Cecille has recently conducted research into self-efficacy beliefs of students studying for the National Diploma in Information Technology at her university. Her research has shown that female students, unlike female students in some developed countries, have similar (high) computer self-efficacy to male students. This appears to be related to a perception that women can do anything and comes from the female role models that they have grown up with (many come from households that have a female head) as well as the empowerment of women in the new democratic South Africa. Ironically, the fact that many households have female heads was caused by the apartheid
policy of migrant labour.

I've also investigated self-efficacy at Wits which is more similar to a university in a developed country, with most students having attended technologically-advantaged schools and few students from rural areas. My research showed that among the Wits Computer Science students, female students had significantly lower self-esteem than male students, following the trends in developed countries. It's fascinating to compare these different results from different parts of South Africa.

I wish Cecille all the best for her term as ambassador and I wish everyone at ACM-W a fond farewell.

News From Under Down-Under(Ambassador: Annika Hinze, Senior Lecturer, University of Waikato)

This is my first blog report, so as the Ambassador for New Zealand I would like to start by introducing you to my country.

New Zealand is predominantly an urban country, with a multi-cultural mix of Pakeha, Maori, Asian and Pacific Islanders. New Zealand is the only country in the world in which all the highest offices in the land have been occupied simultaneously by women: the Queen, the Governor General, Prime Minister, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chief Justice, and Maori all had women in office between March 2005 and August 2006.

However New Zealand has a Gini coefficient of 36.2 measuring income equality (0 being total equality) - which means that the situation here is comparable to that in the UK. Unfortunately there seems to be a decline and this situation is getting worse! NZ census data claims that 42% of the IT workforce are women -- however, only 27% out of these are system technicians and application engineers. So while these figures are better than in many other countries we again see the typical picture of women as the IT minority gender.

A major project that I have initiated in New Zealand is the Computing Women Congress which is conducted in Hamilton. The congress is built around the strategy of encouraging women into IT by enabling students to meet with other women who are already successfully working within IT (see e.g., this study or this one).

The Congress has been running for three years now and brings together students, academics and IT practitioners. The conference is modelled after similar ones internationally with one important difference - its size. New Zealand is a small country and our conference brings together 40 to 50 women in IT. Within these three days together in February, people can really get to know each other. Courses have two to five participants and are truly hands-on. The 2008 conference had technical topics, such as data compression, statistics, and peer-to-peer computing, mixed with career skills training as well as gender and IT topics. Nuchjira Laungrungthip won the award for the best student paper - congratulations! This year's participants of the CWC came from the New Zealand islands as well as Australia, Germany, the UK and the USA. The conference was rounded off by a visit to the bubbling mud pools in Rotorua (remember, February is at the end of the NZ summer). The next conference is planned for 2010 (stay tuned).

Sex Still Sells – or does it? Ambassador: Jan Peters (ACM-W Ambassador for the UK)

I was planning to write my blog contribution to reflect on the falling number of IT graduates in the UK, the poor take up of flexibility and the efforts by the British Computer Society and the UK trade body, Intellect to champion and effect change. But coverage recently of the UK National Electronics Week, in early June caused me to change tack and reflect on the way companies are engaging with their users. And the effect of this on the image of the IT profession.

The cause of my consternation was the advertising by JTAG. JTAG uses models to promote their product and attract potential clients to exhibition stands. The CEO even has his own web pages featuring the models. A combination of approaches from across the world, led by e-groups, led to their recent advert being taken down following emails and phone calls to the company. These adverts called me to question all sorts of things:

• Am I narrow minded? Out of touch?
• Jealous that I don’t have the right behind to look good in skin-tight hotpants?
• Confused about the role of hard hats in the electronics industry - I thought everything was getting smaller and smaller?
• Irritated by advertising agencies?
• Bemused? When our professionals - men and women - shout loudly that we cannot lower standards just to allow more women in and then I find that sex still sells and actually standards or products don’t matter.
• Or cross? When my male friends and colleagues shrug their shoulders and say matter of factly “99% of their customers are men so if it attracts them to their stand then why not” and crosser still when the same cohort seem to find it acceptable that these professionals of impeccable morals, high standards and judgment are happy to concede that they would happily buy products from a stand that they had been drawn to by models. Not because they sell superior product.
• Maybe I’m just irritated that sales, marketing and advertising agencies don’t know who their customers are. Eppendorf were drawn to my attention with their cringe-making advert for an autopippette system: Here’s the link – www.eppendorf.com/int/hawkpopup.php?contentid=13 - it has to be seen and make sure your sound is on. Are they trying to target women? Sadly it seems more appropriate to 14 year olds and they are unlikely to have the budget or interest to buy an autopipette system. I’d like to think it was a bit of fun designed to lighten our long days.

The action taken by JTAG in light of our protests in taking the advert down shows that we can make our voices heard. If we continue to shout loudly in the right way and right places the message will get through. We work in this profession and until the images of women that are portrayed are serious and professional we cannot hope to either attract more young women in or be taken seriously ourselves.

So where does this leave us? Arguably girls and students won’t encounter these images. Hence they won’t be surprised to find we aren’t all 20 something clones with blonde hair, cute behinds and perfect teeth and only capable of leading slack jawed guys to the right exhibition stand. [Not, dear friends that I am suggesting you are not up to these Barbie perfect standards and or completely gorgeous as well as intelligent in your own right]. But how are these images going to convince parents that computing is a worthwhile society-benefitting profession for their daughters. So what to do?

I believe that we need to draw on the skills and knowledge of advertising agencies, social scientists, psychologists and education specialists developing a portfolio of ‘collateral’ in a sustained campaign to engender awareness, interest and promote action in terms of getting young women to develop the right skills. For skills are something we learn - right? and moving young women beyond the perception that they can’t do IT / computing is just that, a perception, not a reality. Our campaigns must be joined up and across our nations. The route from child poverty is through mothers. Empowering them in the support of the education of their children and widening their career options and choices is our responsibility. We must take it.

Link to other relevant blogs:
http://eileenbrown.wordpress.com/2008/06/19/why-oh-why-does-this-still-happen/
http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2008/06/making_noise_wo

Shafi Goldwasser accepts the 2008 ACM-W Athena Lecturer Award

Shafi Goldwasser accepted the ACM-W Athena Lecturer Award at the ACM Awards Banquet at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco on June 21, 2008.

Pictured (L-R): Stu Feldman, ACM President;
Elaine Weyuker, ACM-W co-Chair;
Alan Eustace, Google Vice President;
Shafi Goldwasser; John White, ACM CEO.

Congratulations Reyyan Ayfer, winner of the Anita Borg Change Agent Award

ACM-W Turkish Ambassador Reyyan Ayfer has been named a winner of the Anita Borg Change Agent Award for her many accomplishments. Reyyan will receive her award at the 2008 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Learn more about Reyyan and her work as ambassador in her recent blog entry. Congratulations, Reyyan!

United States Women in Computing News Ambassador: Mary Anne Egan

This month is a report on the status of women in computing in the United States. According to the most recent Taulbee survey for the academic year 2006-2007 [1], 19.1% of new Ph.D.s and 22.6% of the Master’s degrees were awarded to women. These numbers represent a slight increase in the ratio of women among new Ph.D.s and about the same ratio of Master’s degrees as the previous year. The statistics for Bachelor’s degree production is down from 14.2% for 2005-2006 to 11.8% for 2006-2007. The fraction of new female students is reported now to be less than 10% in many Bachelor’s programs. This is a serious problem in achieving our field’s diversity goals.

The decrease in the number of female computer science majors is concerning not just because women should share in the formation of the field’s future and participate in its rewards, but also because the absence of women in the field is a foreboding omen for the technological future of our country. “Women are the canaries in the coal mine,” Lenore Blum stated at a talk at Harvard University [2], in that factors driving women away will eventually drive men away as well. The Taulbee survey summarized the status of undergraduate education in the U.S. with the following statement: “Undergraduate degree production continues its downward trend, although this trend should cease within the next two years, at least in U.S. CS departments. However, signs of recovery from the sharp decline that has lasted several years have yet to materialize.” [1]

The lack of students entering computer science strengthening our country’s technological talent pool combined with the economic downturn presents the United States with limited choices. No longer will it be an option to locate talent in other countries, the U.S. dollar won’t support it. No longer will the United States be on the leading edge of technology, we will struggle merely to keep up.

Unless there are major changes on the educational front, our nation’s children are going to continue to form their impressions of a computer scientist or a computer career based on what they see in the media. If they can’t experience the benefits of computers on society and the necessity of advances in computing first hand, they are left with the media images. Incorporating computing into all aspects of education needs to start now. Why can’t one of the books they read for literature be an exciting one about computers? Why can’t the history of computing be part of their history lessons about World War II? Why can’t the ideas of simulation and modeling be part of their earth science class, especially when there are so many natural disasters ravaging our world? I truly believe that if students knew that a computer science career could take you in one of these directions, we would have students flocking to the major. At this point, we have students thinking that computer majors develop new games, operating systems, hardware or maybe stretch into cool “new” applications like Facebook and cell phone applications. These are interesting, but many students want to make a difference in this world. Notice that there has been an increase in physics and engineering majors now that the price of fuel has risen so high. They see that there is a need for them; we just need to show them that there is a need for computer scientists too. Show them how technology can be used to impact others – lessen paper output, reduce transportation costs by facilitating communication or scheduling, decrease world illiteracy, the list could go on.

How can we accomplish the computer re-education of our children? We need to start with the support of our government. Yes, the government supports many outstanding and beneficial programs, but there must be a more conscious effort to combine these into a focused program. Right now I feel we have a flashlight approach for solving this problem, but we need a laser beam – focused and strong! What should this program focus on? The first would be to determine a basic technological skill set for all students across America. This would go beyond typing and PowerPoint and incorporate problem solving skills, investigate computer science topics (i.e., how the difference in a sorting algorithm will affect their checkout time at the local grocery store). Computer Science Unplugged [3] has a wealth of information and activities available to teach these concepts to elementary school children in a fun way that does not require access to computers. Another way to increase computer science topics is to integrate computer components into existing courses. I mentioned earlier about books or historical topics introduced in English or History classes. Other ideas include using the ipod or cell phone to demonstrate the concepts of randomization, hashing, programming, storage, etc.

The final piece of this educational puzzle is to certify computer science teachers at the elementary and secondary level. To have knowledgeable people demonstrate the possibilities, beauty and benefits of computer science would give students a more complete view of the field of computer science. There have been some worries that by requiring all computer science teachers to be certified, we will limit the number of teachers available. We may see this happen at first, but once students realize that it is possible to combine a major in computer science with a career in teaching, these numbers should increase.

I didn’t want this article to be all “doom and gloom” and I don’t feel it is. There are serious problems, but all the answers are there, we just need to implement them. There are many people working hard to promote computer science in the U.S., especially among girls and women. The Girl Scouts’ Girls Go Tech Program, Computer Science Unplugged and other programs run by various colleges and universities, are exposing young girls to the concepts of computer science. The CSTA focuses on the secondary school experience for students and their teachers across the country. Once these students enter college or university, there are several support organizations such as ACM, Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, CRA-W and the Grace Hopper Women in Computing Conference, which provide guidance, support and role models. These are just a few groups that are doing amazing work in increasing the number of young people entering the field of computer science. A sobering thought when one considers all the projects currently in place is this: how many fewer majors would we have without these programs?

The time is right, the time is now, we need to work together to create national programs that incorporate computers into the students’ curriculum as much as they are already incorporated into the rest of their lives.

[1] May 2008 edition of Computing Research News, Vol. 20/No. 3
[2] The New York Times, April 17, 2007
[3] Computer Science Unplugged, http://csunplugged.com