More on Women and Technology

In my previous post, Empowering Women in Technology, I discussed the fact that most technical fields are VERY male-dominated.  How can we change this?  This was really an issue way back when I was at the University of Florida, College of Engineering. I would love to hear your ideas!

Below are some random links and comments about involving women in STEM fields:  science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

This is an excellent article by astronaut Mae Jemison on interstellar travel, we can't do this with just half the population.  Yes, we need to include the other half.  Encourage them to pursue STEM careers!

I also found this interesting event about women, science, and wikipedia edit-athon on March 4th.  (I started this post a while back -- oops should have posted it earlier.)

I just found out about International Women's Day, Saturday March 8, 2014, " a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future".  I don't know a lot about it, but this sounds like an excellent day to celebrate women and technology!

Our Western society does include women in science and technology to a much larger extent than some societies.  For example this very good article, Islamic Women in Science, addresses some of the issues including women in the Middle East and in Islamic societies.  

NASA has a Women at NASA page discussing NASA’s education outreach programs targeted at women and girls.

LinuxChix (www.linuxchix.org):  "LinuxChix is a community for women who like Linux and Free Software, and for women and men who want to support women in computing."

Fedora Women "a project designed to connect and assist women who are interested in using and contributing to Fedora."

Arch Women (archwomen.org) that describes themselves as "an all inclusive organization of Arch Linux enthusiasts with a focus on helping more women become involved in the Arch Linux community and FOSS."

Did you know that Sophie Wilson created the original ARM software architecture for the  ARM processor used in nearly all phones and tablets?

Women make up over 1/2 of the population so imagine what we could accomplish were we to fully include women in technology. Women bring a fresh perspective and new ideas!   Imagine the inventions that could be created!

Get involved!  Teach!  Mentor!  Encourage!