Women in IT Intervention Programs Global Failure

April 24, 2014

—-10 May update here is a link to a 3 minute video of ABC TV “The Business”  note the video only brings out some points and due to brevity missed a LOT however is a start:-) ******

Yeah “The book” is all ready and published – this link includes download pdf’s to preview chapters plus full pdf’s of preface and forewords..

Here is a link to a video ‘conference” I did pre book release it reveals some aspects of the book.

Here are some book teaser messages for you:

Key messages in the book are that the girls who want to be in IT are already in IT. Basically girls discover early in their lives if they have an interest in IT or they discover their interest through exposure to IT at work, very few of those in IT got there through an intervention program.  In fact the research reveals that only 1%-6% of women currently in IT got there via intervention programs.

The evidence presented in the book confirms that despite the reams of global research and decades of well-intentioned work by organisations, activists, and advocates to tackle the problem—including ad hoc, systematic, and comprehensive efforts, comprising career days, computer clubs, role modelling, mentoring, coaching, general promotional events and more—the attempts have been futile. A multitude of things have been done, but their goal of increasing the number of women in IT remains elusive. Yet, belief in the value of the programs persists, despite the lack of objective evidence. It is time to recognise that there has been a massive global failure to stem the decline of girls taking up technology studies and women entering technology careers. This failure has cost many millions of dollars around the globe, and it is time to seriously question the sense of continuing.