Why Women Have an Advantage in Technology

New York Times by Adriana Gardella | Jun. 24, 2011 (Interview)

(Blog Post) Audrey MacLean describes herself as an accidental technologist, an accidental entrepreneur, and an accidental investor. But at the age of eight, she made at least one plan: She would earn a college scholarship. Ms. MacLean, 59, executed that plan and went on to help start Network Equipment Technologies, which went public in 1987. Later, she was a founder and chief executive of Adaptive. She has given seed financing to numerous successful start-ups ... Full Story »

Posted by Kristin Gorski - via NewsRack (U.S.), urmi das (t), Ish Harshawat (t), Wil Kristin (t), Alfredo Ramos Jr (t), Thanh Tran (t), mckarthy diahn (t), David K. Miller (t)

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Kristin Gorski
3.8
 by Kristin Gorski - Jun. 24, 2011

Brief, yet strong, interview. The reporter allows the interviewee to make important points and express them fully. Links out to mentioned companies and resources.

We need to get girls interested in computing by first grade. By fifth grade, it’s game over. Computing has an image crisis. A boy geek subculture has grown up around gaming that involves violence. It’s not something little girls aspire to. It’s not about lack of educational opportunities for women. Smart girls graduate from high school with straight A’s, go to college, and find themselves surrounded by guys who’ve been hacking for 10 years. So they’re way behind. They get discouraged, and go into law or medicine.

There are some burgeoning programs that aim to get elementary-age students interested in programming. Look at MIT’s Scratch online programming community as one example (http://scratch.mit.edu/).

Kristin posted this story.

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