From an article by Ludmila Morozova-Buss on TechNative:
Women have played a role in computer technology since its inception.
Many credit Ava Lovelace as the first computer programmer, in a time before computers even existed, and women from Grace Hopper to the women who worked with Alan Turing at Bletchley Park were key in the development and adoption of modern computing devices. However, the number of women working in tech dropped significantly after the 1980s, and the percentage of tech employees who are female lags far behind other fields, including business, law, and medicine. Still, there are signs of progress, and understanding the statistics pertaining to women in tech is essential for understanding the problems and addressing them.
PwC recently looked at the role of women in tech in the UK. In STEM fields, women accounted for only 15 percent of employees. More distressingly, there are few signs that this number will rise without extra action, as only 15.8 percent of undergraduates in STEM fields are women. Leadership examples can be key toward encouraging more participation among women, yet only five percent of leadership positions in STEM fields are held by women. In PwC’s report “The Female Millennial — The New Era of Talent,” researchers found that young women want to work with employers with a strong history of inclusion, diversity, and equality. Many women see the low number of women in tech and choose to enter other fields.
The PwC reports highlights the problems these disparities create for UK companies. Two-thirds of CEOs in the UK claim to have difficulty hiring people with digital skills, a numbers that significantly exceeds the 43 percent of CEOs who claimed the same in the US and the 24 percent of CEOs in China. Countless studies have shown a shortage of tech workers in the UK and around the world, and this number will only rise. Increasing the number of women entering tech is perhaps the most powerful tool for alleviating this burden.
Ludmila Morozova-Buss is Vice President of Public Relations and Media Communications at Global Institute for IT Management (GIIM) & Executive Partner at Brooks Consulting International (BCI) – a boutique global marketing, branding, and government relations firm specializing in Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies.
Scientists Just Captured the Stunning Process That Shapes Chromosomes
Scientists at EMBL have captured how human chromosomes fold into their signature rod shape during cell division, using a groundbreaking method called LoopTrace. By observing overlapping DNA loops forming in high resolution, they revealed that large [...]
Bird Flu Virus Is Mutating Fast – Scientists Say Our Vaccines May Not Be Enough
H5N1 influenza is evolving rapidly, weakening the effectiveness of existing antibodies and increasing its potential threat to humans. Scientists at UNC Charlotte and MIT used high-performance computational modeling to analyze thousands of viral protein-antibody interactions, revealing [...]
Revolutionary Cancer Vaccine Targets All Solid Tumors
The method triggers immune responses that inhibit melanoma, triple-negative breast cancer, lung carcinoma, and ovarian cancer. Cancer treatment vaccines have been in development since 2010, when the first was approved for prostate cancer, followed [...]
Scientists Uncover Hidden Protein Driving Autoimmune Attacks
Scientists have uncovered a critical piece of the puzzle in autoimmune diseases: a protein that helps release immune response molecules. By studying an ultra-rare condition, researchers identified ArfGAP2 as a key player in immune [...]
Mediterranean neutrino observatory sets new limits on quantum gravity
Quantum gravity is the missing link between general relativity and quantum mechanics, the yet-to-be-discovered key to a unified theory capable of explaining both the infinitely large and the infinitely small. The solution to this [...]
Challenging Previous Beliefs: Japanese Scientists Discover Hidden Protector of Heart
A Japanese research team found that the oxidized form of glutathione (GSSG) may protect heart tissue by modifying a key protein, potentially offering a novel therapeutic approach for ischemic heart failure. A new study [...]
Millions May Have Long COVID – So Why Can’t They Get Diagnosed?
Millions of people in England may be living with Long Covid without even realizing it. A large-scale analysis found that nearly 10% suspect they might have the condition but remain uncertain, often due to [...]
Researchers Reveal What Happens to Your Brain When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep
What if poor sleep was doing more than just making you tired? Researchers have discovered that disrupted sleep in older adults interferes with the brain’s ability to clean out waste, leading to memory problems [...]
Leave A Comment