Communications of the ACM
Google's Marissa Mayer Says More Women Needed in Tech
"We need a lot more people [in technology jobs] and if we grow that number, then the number of women, by nature, goes up," Google Vice President Marissa Mayer told the International Consumer Electronics Show.
Credit: Stephen Shankland / CNet
Despite recent advances by women in high-tech fields, there is still much room for growth, according to a group of female tech executives speaking at the recent International Consumer Electronics Show. "Right now, it's a really great time to be a woman in technology, but there aren't enough women in technology," says Google vice president Marissa Mayer. She says part of the problem is that the U.S. is not producing enough computer scientists as a whole. "We need a lot more people and if we grow that number, then the number of women, by nature, goes up," Mayer says.
More effort is needed to push high schools to develop computer science courses, Mayer says. "Imagine if we had 200,000 or 500,000 students graduating from high school every year who have taken computer science, as well as calculus," Mayer says. Just two percent of Google engineers say they were exposed to computer science in high school, she says.
Nevertheless, Cisco Systems chief technology officer Padmasree Warrior says that much progress has been made in getting more women to work in high-tech. "If you look at two of the largest tech companies today, IBM and [Hewlett-Packard], they have women CEOs and there are a lot of women in tech who have made progress in our lives," Warrior says.
From Computerworld
View Full Article
Abstracts Copyright © 2012 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA
No entries found