A 2010 study by the National Center for Women in Technology showed the number of women majoring in computer science dropped 79 percent from 2000 to 2008. Additionally, women accounted for just 18 percent of computer science degrees, despite earning 57 percent of all degrees in 2008.As a result, women now make up just 27 percent of all computer scientists.
Source: National Center for Women in Technology
Affinity Group Alliance provides women’s technical groups with resources, connections, and a national platform
BOULDER, Colo.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), a coalition of universities, corporations, and non-profits working to increase women’s participation in technology and computing, has launched an Affinity Group Alliance to unite and support groups that serve technical women. Read More
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was the first woman to successfully complete the medical qualifying exams in Great Britain and the first woman physician in Great Britain. She was also an advocate of women’s suffrage and women’s opportunities in higher education and became the first woman in England elected as mayor
Tebello Nyokong won the Africa-Arab State 2009 L’Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science for her pioneering research into photodynamic therapy which looks at harnessing light for cancer therapy and environmental clean-up. Nyokong is the third South African Scientist to receive this award.
Tebello Nyokong was born in Lesotho on 20 October 1951, but spent most of her first eight years outside her country of birth. In primary school she spent alternate days tending sheep. Far from discouraging her, this increased her self-confidence because she concluded that she could do anything a boy could do.
In 1977 she graduated from the National University of Lesotho, having spent her spare time doing research on the role of chemistry in everyday African life, and obtained a Canadian International Development Agency Scholarship to undertake post-graduate studies. Four years later she graduated with an MSc in chemistry, and after further study received a PhD from the University of Western Ontario in 1987. She then applied for and was given a Fulbright fellowship for post-doctoral study at the University of Notre Dame in the United States. At Rhodes, Nyokong trains PhD Chemistry students. In 2010, Prof Nyokong was awarded honorary doctorates from the Walter Sisulu University and the University of South Africa. Prof Nyokong has been inducted into the Lesotho Hall of Fame.
Cher Wang isn’t just one of the richest people in Taiwan, she is also one of the world’s leaders in smartphone technology. The company Wang founded, HTC, makes more than one out of every six smartphones currently on the American market. HTC’s secret? Creating products directly for major brands such as Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile in reaction to perceived customer needs.
While HTC was founded as High Tech Computers and began in the late 1980s as a portable computer manufacturing firm, the company’s bread and butter these days is smartphone devices. The company’s latest projects include a series of low-cost 4G smartphones for Verizon and T-Mobile, along with a variety of Windows Phone 7 devices. And, they were the first to offer an Android phone.
Carolyn Leighton founded WITI in 1989 as a worldwide e-mail network for women in all technology sectors. At the time WITI was established, Ms. Leighton was President of Criterion Research, a research consulting firm for the high tech industry which she founded in 1984, as well as chair of the Core Competency Database Project at Stanford University.
Due to Ms. Leighton’s leadership and vision, WITI has grown to be the premiere brand and worldwide organization dedicated to empowering women worldwide to achieve unimagined possibilities and transformations through technology, leadership and economic prosperity.
Ms. Leighton has 35 years of experience as an educator and entrepreneur. In addition to WITI, she founded four start-ups in the high-tech, legal sectors and, most recently, the pet industry. She attended the University of Michigan and has a bachelor’s degree in human development from Pacific Oaks College. Ms. Leighton was named one of the “Top 100 Women in Computing” in 1997 and 2000.
New York Times
SAN FRANCISCO The phone call, at home one night last week, came from a student seeking donations for the University of California, San Francisco.
“Well,” Dr. Susan Desmond-Hellmann told the caller, “I’m actually the chancellor at U.C.S.F.” Read More
follow: RSS