Still a men’s worldAmbassador: Maria Knobelsdorf, Germany

I would like to start the January Blog by wishing you all a happy, healthy, and successful New Year!

My name is Maria Knobelsdorf and I’m the new ambassador for Germany. Let me begin my report about Women in CS in Germany by giving you first a brief account of the overall situation today and in the past.

CS was established at German universities in the 1970s. Female students were attracted by the new CS programs (of all first CS students 25% were women) and their participation constantly rose. During the 1980s and 1990s, in West-Germany the famous shrinking pipeline was established and female participation dropped to 7%, then slowly leveling off to 14% in the 90s. In East-Germany by contrast, the percentage of female CS students remained high throughout and only started to drop down after the reunification in 1993. Since then it has remained constant at less than 20%. At the beginning of the new century, the German government established several “women into CS/IT/Computing”-programs to augment the percentages of CS female students up to 40% in 2004. Unfortunately, beside a small augmentation due to the dot.com-hype, CS female students still remain under 20% [1].

What are the reasons? Maybe one of the key points is that in German high schools CS is not taught nationwide in every grade like Math or German. For example, in some German states, schools do not need to offer CS classes, whereas in other states they must offer CS as a minor subject in 9th and 10th grade. By consequence, many students frequently have wrong, limited, or inadequate ideas about career opportunities in CS, as well as CS social environment and culture. Beliefs about IT jobs and careers are highly biased and restricted to the cliché of a lonely male programmer in front of a computer-screen. Here is a long-lasting battle field between administration, government and the German CS Education community. The latter persistently demands that CS becomes a full subject in high school, meanwhile the other side claims that “all this computing, web-surfing, and e-mail writing students learn at home. How to use a word processor the German teacher, and how to use Excel for statistics the Math or Biology teacher can easily teach, too…”

Another reason for low CS interest among female students are certainly missing role models. CS teachers in high schools are mostly male and the university teaching and research staff in CS institutes or departments is male as well. Therefore, a lot of initiatives have been started to bring more women into CS, with “Informatica Feminale” probably being one of the most successful ones. Organized as a summer school for female CS students and faculty, Informatica feminale brings together students, research associates and professors to experience CS in an unfamiliar female environment. Younger students meet birds of a feather, and seniors act as role models. The CS summer school for women has been very successful for 12 years, and has also propagated the idea to Austria and New Zealand in the last years [2].

Altogether, female students in Germany remain a minority in CS at all levels, and many more initiatives are needed to bring about significant change. As a researcher in CS Education I investigate into students’ pathways to CS. Many studies from countries with the same problematic situation like [3], [4] as well as my own results [5] show that male students start very early not only to use the computer but to explore it. They are curious how computers work and, together with peers and/or family members, explore the computer’s functionalities and possibilities in an open, self-directed, and “learning-by-doing” learning habit. Women by contrast approach the computer more intellectually and seriously: computers are no toys for them but a tool. Therefore, they don’t play, hack, or tinker around with it. When the computer is not working, they don’t start to figure it out by themselves as long as they haven’t exactly understood how it works and what they need to do. Last but not least, very often girls don’t have a buddy they can ask for advice and discuss computer problems with.

The rest is history: the boys continue playing and exploring with the computer; they discover webpages and start to work with html; php, flash or other script languages follow; then, their buddy has an older brother who is learning Java in high school, etc. When boys start to major in CS in university, they are already very skilled computer users and administrators who knows a lot about programming. The girls on the contrary remain curious but also somehow “helpless” users. However, some of them are curious, interested, and brave enough to dare choosing CS as a major… More about students’ pathways to CS in another blog.

[1] Britta Schinzel (2004). Kulturunterschiede beim Frauenanteil im Studium der Informatik Teil II: Informatik in Deutschland. http://mod.iig.uni-freiburg.de/cms/fileadmin/publikationen/online-publikationen/Informatik.Frauen.Deutschland.pdf
[2] Homepage of Informatica Feminale. http://www.informatica-feminale.de
[3] Margolis, J. and Fisher, A. (2002). Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing. Cambridge, MIT Press.
[4] Cohoon, J. M. and Aspray, W. 2006 Women and Information Technology. Research on Underrepresentation, MIT Press
[5] My publication list about students’ pathways to CS. https://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/w/DDI/KnobelsdorfPublications

Congratulations, Dame Wendy Hall!

ACM President Wendy Hall has been appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II. Announcement of this honor was made by Buckingham Palace as part of the 2009 New Year Honours list, and it will be bestowed later in the year. More information is availabile in the press release from the University of Southampton.

From all of us at ACM-W, congratulations!

Women at the Brazil National Database Conference

Another small – but surprisingly effective – awareness-raising initiative was taken during the 23th national database conference promoted by SBC. During the conference (October 2008), we decided to have a picture taken of all women present who are doing research in databases in Brazil. The pictures that follow show the overall group (teachers and students), as well as just the graduate students. The third picture is interesting in itself – it shows many amateur photographers (university faculty) who were recording this photographic event.

Though simple, this initiative had an immediate repercussion in many universities. Faculty and students present during the conference became immediately aware of “something happening”. Some of them talked to us to understand the need for such a picture, and have since offered to help.

Notice that there are many faculty and few graduate students. Though this is another example of the decreasing number of women, one must remember that faculty, once hired, remain in their universities for thirty years or more, while students will stay for 2 (MSc) to 4 or 5 years (PhD). Hence, one would expect less female students overall – given that some of the faculty, like myself, have been active for over 25 years.

This research domain is considered in Brazil one that has been able to attract a larger amount of women – and, from the pictures, that really looks like it. There are far more women in databases, software engineering and interface design, in Brazil, than in, for instance, computer architecture. One possible explanation is that work in databases requires extensive human interaction, and discussions with end-users. The same applies to software engineering or human-computer interaction. This would conform to the hypothesis that women are more attracted to careers where there are more opportunities for social contact. Another factor concerns role models – given that proportionately more women conduct research in databases, female graduate students might be more attracted to the field, to become faculty in the future. Whatever the reason, the fact remains – there are many women still interested in conducting research careers in databases in Brazil, and we welcome newcomers!

News From BrazilAmbassador: Claudia Bauzer Medeiros – Institute of Computing, University of Campinas

Computer Science university teachers, in Brazil, are becoming increasingly conscious of the problem of the decreasing presence of women among undergraduate and even graduate students. As a result, a few initiatives are being organized. The first is the creation, in 2007, of an official event sponsored by the Brazilian Computer Society (Sociedade Brasileira de Computação) concerning issues surrounding Women in Information Technology (WIT). Interestingly enough, this event has attracted a large percentage of male participants, who are intrigued by this problem. The third WIT (WIT 2009) will take place in July, in the city of São Leopoldo, in the South of Brazil, being co-located with the SBC national conference.

All previous WIT (s) were also co-located with this conference, which is a very good decision, since it attracts every year over 2000 participants from all over Brazil. Hence, many people have become aware of the problem. Many of WIT participants are now actively promoting new initiatives to attract more women, and to raise the overall awareness about related issues.

One interesting initiative is to start a bimonthly column in a new electronic magazine, called SBC Horizons, to discuss opportunities and challenges for women in IT. SBC Horizons will be launched in December 2008, and is to be distributed to thousands of SBC student members. It will also be available on the Society´s Web site. I am the co-editor of this column, together with Prof. Sandra Fabbri from the Federal University at São Carlos. The magazine is geared towards undergraduate students, and covers matters related to job market, career opportunities, curriculum options and research challenges. Several subjects are also of interest to high school students who are considering career options. Hence, this column – called Bits, Bytes e Batom (bits, bytes and lipstick) will hopefully attract more girls to IT courses. We welcome suggestions for subjects and material to cover!

Introducing the new ACM-W Council

ACM's Committee on Women in Computing has now been raised to a Council in the ACM organizational structure. Our new name is the ACM-W Council, and our charter states: "The ACM-W Council (AWC) will be chartered for the purpose of creating awareness of, interest in, and the need for elevating the issue of gender diversity within ACM as well as externally." The first meeting of the ACM-W council was held in Keystone Colorado on October 3 at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.

Using Technology to Create an Economic Powerhouse Ambassador: Jehan Ara, Pakistan

Women account for almost 50% of Pakistan’s potential workforce. However, their active/acknowledged participation in economic activities is quite low compared with other economies. Even though they participate dynamically in family, home, community or farm activities, this unpaid work is perceived as their social duty rather than an economic contribution. One of the main reasons for the low economic participation of women in the country could be limited socio-economic opportunities and socio-cultural values and traditions.

During the last ten years, many countries have developed ‘Women’s Enterprise Strategic Frameworks’ to provide a collaborative and long-term approach to the development of women’s enterprise and entrepreneurship. The long-term vision set out by these frameworks is to create an environment and culture that encourages more women to start and grow businesses.

A recent research study demonstrates that in Pakistan, women entrepreneurs’ full economic potential is not being realised. As in many developing countries, women entrepreneurs in Pakistan also suffer from the lack of access to, including control over, capital, land, business premises, information and appropriate technology, suitable markets, training and capacity building opportunities, production inputs, and assistance from government agencies. They lack sophisticated networking mechanisms and effective social capital, constituency building and advocacy.

The potential of ICT for stimulating economic growth, social development and political participation is recognized, but it is increasingly apparent that the benefits are unevenly distributed. Women are increasingly taking advantage of ICT in all spheres of life, thus confirming that ICT can be a tool to promote gender equality and enhance the economic, political and social empowerment of women. As women, it is our challenge to encourage the spread and use of this technology to a larger number of women, to choose what we use and in which way we will have our contributions valued in a properly egalitarian society, for the freedom to use technologies as we will. Not solely for contributing to the Knowledge Based Economy, but for participating in and creating an economy of our own choosing, in a life of our own choosing.

A lot of women in Pakistani cities go to University. They do better academically than a lot of the young men but unfortunately a very small number filter into the workforce.
I have long felt that this is because of a number of reasons – responsibilities for small children, ailing parents, security concerns, distance from work and socio-cultural restrictions. How, I asked myself, can I and women like me help to economically empower these women? Thus surfaced the idea of the Women’s Virtual Network which I am planning to launch by the end of this month.

The objective of WVN is to:

• Open up a Virtual Networking space for the economic empowerment of Pakistani women through the development of rewarding online careers and remotely operated businesses.
• To benefit organizations and employers by making available talent, skills, concepts and specialized knowledge that would otherwise be inaccessible to them.
• To bring women associations and educated women, both entrepreneurial and workers, into mainstream business activities through networking and providing access to information such as market opportunities, business and career advice and exchange of innovative ideas through an Online Virtual Networking space.
• To create online communities to encourage networking and sharing of resources by women in different professions.

The project will connect:

1. Educated women with companies that have jobs that can be outsourced
2. There are already a dozen or more women who have registered as Online mentors and will provide guidance to these women in the selection of their careers or the formation of their businesses
3. Online communities of women in health, in education, in science and engineering, in education, in media who can share resources and knowledge.
4. A free online marketplace for women to showcase and market their products and service hence achieving an outreach to areas way beyond their immediate vicinities.

I am hoping that this Women’s Virtual Network will evolve and grow with the needs of the women who register on it. It is for me a Social Entrepreneurship that I hope to make self sustaining. Wish me luck.

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.