Don't look back....Technology and Diversity

Two themes pop up, not unrelated, in this week’s appointments reported on NewsonWomen.com - Technology and Diversity. I say they are not unrelated because a common complaint is that there are few women in technology. Boardmember.com’s list of the top 50 women in tech shows us there are experienced women in the industry. Gretchen McClain’s accomplishments in technology are amazing, including overseeing the development and launch of the International Space Station. And Stephanie Rosenbloom’s article about teenage girls being the “Cyberpioneers of the Moment” demonstrates that the ranks of young women interested in technology are swelling. These are the bookends, the young and the experienced, but other posts show us there are more in the middle. Look at Meebo, a new instant messaging platform, a great example where women from Stanford, computer science majors, and others are building a new company. The board appointments also follow the tech theme this week with Wenda Harris Millard, the former Chief Sales Officer at Yahoo!, joining the board of ContextWeb and Lori Schafer joining the Board of eFashionSolutions.
Yet there still seems to be a need for careful cultivation and training as Babson College and Comcast appoint leadership and diversity executives. Leadership training with a focus on diversity can only help women move into better jobs.
Girls becoming our cyberheroes is an important step forward in developing future leaders. The meaning of why teenage girls are now the “cyberpioneers” cannot be completely understood using historical measures. Rather than looking to caution as suggested in the article, I think we should capitalize on the trend. The boy in Stephanie’s article had it right – “the girls are into putting something up and getting responses”. Shouldn’t that give us some insight into how to make science and technology interesting for them? Let’s not look back for explanations. Let’s look forward for opportunities.

Alice Krause
Founder
NewsonWomen.com
www.newsonwomen.com
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