Communications of the ACM
Gca: Female Developers Crashing the Boys Club
Gail Carmichael, Ph.D. student, Carleton University
Gail Carmichael is one of the few women to enter the Great Canadian Appathon, a 48-hour video game coding competition taking place at college and university campuses across Canada. Carmichael created a game called Gram's House, in which users must take on the role of a computer scientist, completing mini puzzle games that are teaching them about concepts such as binary code. The goal of the game is to get girls interested in computer science.
"The idea is that you're trying to get girls to sort of see that computer science has a potential to make an actual social difference because, as stereotypical as it sounds, most girls do care about that," Carmichael says. "With computer science, they just see you sitting at a computer and coding in a dark room, eating chips and drinking Red Bull ... so it's really important to kind of help them get a new image of it."
The National Center for Women & Information Technology reports that more than 60 percent of girls claimed to have no high school computer coursework or experience. However, once girls actually enroll in a computer science degree, prior experience has little to do with whether or not they will succeed in the program, according to a Carnegie Mellon University study.
From Financial Post (Canada)
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