Archive | Women & Technology RSS for this section
June 9, 2014  

For having more women as leaders

Visible Women

Corporate world companies are still very much a boy’s club. Look inside the corner offices of Fortune 500 companies, and you’ll find just 24 women–a paltry 4.8%–sitting at the CEO desk. Those who are tapped are often brought in during times of crisis.

Clinical psychologists Susanne Bruckmüller and Nyla Branscombe conducted the 2010 study “The Glass Cliff: When and Why Women are Selected as Leaders in Crisis Contexts,” and found that women are tapped not because female characteristics are valued, but because the stereotypical male traits, such as being competitive and uncompromising, aren’t perceived as being helpful during a turnaround.

Does the glass cliff set up women for failure? Not necessarily, says Kira Makagon, executive vice president of innovation at RingCentral, a cloud-based phone provider. In fact, she looks at the opportunity as a chance to shine.

“Women need to stretch their experience from a functional background to a broader base,” she says. Once in leadership positions, Makagon and Miller say women need to be proactive to stay there. They offer five things women can do to survive the glass cliff:

1. Focus on what you want to achieve.

To move ahead, Makagon says to leave gender aside and focus on your professional strengths.

“In a predominantly male environment, women will be treated differently,” she says. “For example, if there is one chair in the room, it will probably be offered to you. But don’t dwell on the differences. Everyone is judged by their results.”

2. Network and find a mentor.

You can’t move up on your own, says Miller, author of Sleep Your Way to the Top: And Other Myths About Business Success (FG Press, 2014). “It’s vital to have others support you,” she says. “I made the biggest leap at Frito-Lay because I had a mentor who supported me and let everyone know how amazing I was. That catapulted my career.”

Miller says to make sure you’re always networking and building alliances. “You never know who could help you–a boss, peer, or underling,” she says. “People wanted to work for me and that’s how I got to senior management.”

3. Be comfortable with yourself.

Don’t try to change who you are to fit into a man’s world, says Makagon; it will be disingenuous. “In the typical old boys’ club, you’re going to hear men discussing sports,” she says. “I don’t follow teams, and I can’t participate in that conversation. Instead of changing who I am, I change the subject. I’ll ask, ‘Who’s seen what’s playing at opera house?’ Often, they look at me with that deer-in-the-headlights look, but it changes the landscape and puts you in the center.”

While you shouldn’t become someone you’re not, Makagon adds that sometimes it’s important to go with the flow.

“I was invited to a meeting at a cigar bar with the guys,” she says. “I didn’t smoke, but I did go along for the experience. Recognize that you’ll probably be the only woman there, and get comfortable being out of your element.”

4. Pay attention to your leadership style.

This is where women get derailed, says Miller. “Women are often stereotyped,” she says. “We can be accused of being (called) emotional when we may just be passionate, but it’s important not to let your personal style get in the way of being heard.”

Listen to the cues of others. While you don’t need to become someone else to succeed, Miller says you need to realize the most senior person in the room dictates the mood, pace, and atmosphere.

“To be successful, you have to understand that person and flex your style accordingly,” she says. Lead with the facts and listen to the corporate culture. “Once I changed my interactions with senior management and listened more carefully to their language, I suddenly was being heard.”

5. Recognize other women.

Makagon says when you climb the corporate ladder, it’s important to reach out to other women along the way.

January 25, 2014  

How to innovate to reduce discrimination against women

SalaryHerHis

Is there really a discrimination again women?

The film shows what kind of images are showed by some commercial medias. The film showed American medias but in all industrialize countries, we can found these movies that gives this women’s vision.

Beyond medias, is there really some discriminations against women, and especially in industrialised countries ? Simple fact allows us to see the evidence; in Europe, in Russia and Australia, Women are less paid from 17% in comparison with Men, in United States 19%, in UK 21%, in Japan 33% and in Korea 38%. There is no country without any discrimination against women but Scandinavian and New Zealand countries have low discriminations.

But there are other discriminations that have higher consequence.

What are the ratio of Women who have Top Board responsibility?

The best, in Norway, 39% of Board seats are attributed to Women. In USA, 15,7%, in France, 12,7%, in UK, 12,5% and in Germany 11,2%. In the BRICST countries, Brazil, 5,1%, Russia 5,9%, India 5,3%, China 8,5%, South Africa 15,8% and Turkey 10,8%.

Women managers are 20% less paid that men in France; average salary discrimination is around 17% for all categories of Women jobs. Higher the level in the hierarchy is, higher the inequality is.

Anyway, progress is there but the equality will be long to obtain in the current trend…

In 1980, 25% of managers were female; in 2010, 38%.

25% of worldwide countries have legal restrictions on women’s right to work. There is some reductions of restrictions, decade after decade.

Around the world, almost 20% of national parliamentary seats are now occupied by women, up from 17.2% five years ago.

It will take more than 50 years in the current trend to reduce completely the discrimination against women. Can we accelerate the trend? It is up to all of us, women and men to be informed and to make some concrete actions to reduce them.

Check this very interesting blog with a lot of statistics about women’s discrimination

http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/stats-on-human-rights/statistics-on-discrimination/statistics-on-discrimination-of-women/#2

June 17, 2013  

Women in Science & Technology: Critical for Innovation

women-in-tech

Since 2001, the National Science Foundation has invested more than $130 million to support ADVANCE projects at nearly 100 institutions of higher education and STEM-related, not-for-profit organizations across the U.S. CONNECT@RIT (Creating Opportunity Networks for Engagement and Collective Transformation) focuses on improving conditions for female STEM faculty, with a unique emphasis on women who are deaf and hard-of-hearing at the university. RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) will address issues of recruitment, retention and advancement of female faculty through reassessment of some of its academic and human resource policies, expanding a newly established faculty mentoring program and increasing professional development and leadership opportunities.

Part of the NSF research included looking inward at RIT where a climate survey and examination of HR data trends led to the identification of barriers for women faculty. These ranged from the recruitment and advancement of women faculty to balancing work and life. RIT had only 23 percent of its female tenured and tenure track faculty in STEM disciplines, below the 30 percent average represented in U.S. colleges and universities, even though the number of female faculty had tripled at RIT over a 15-year period. Further data revealed gender-based, average salary gaps existed at each faculty rank, and that women left the faculty ranks at a rate nearly twice that of their male colleagues. These findings mirrored national trends for women in STEM careers in academia and in industry.

Among the Connect@RIT project goals includes attracting 30 percent female applicants for RIT STEM faculty positions, at least 75 percent of STEM departments achieving a critical mass of female faculty, retention rates for female faculty that closely mirror those of male faculty, and an increase in the percentage of women in academic leadership positions to a level which maps to their overall representation at RIT. The finish line for the project is five years out and the researchers have plenty of work ahead. But we are confident they will have a similar finish to last year’s race team.

In summary, a diverse and inclusive workforce is crucial for attracting and retaining top talent. This is especially true for colleges and universities, like RIT, that specialize in innovation. RIT has historically been a leader in developing new technologies, systems and approaches. RIT faculty and research teams often partner with business and industry leaders on research and development initiatives. In order to effectively continue in this capacity – to cultivate the best and brightest minds and to be an innovation resource for industry – everybody must proactively encourage diversity.

Diversity isn’t an altruistic aspiration; it’s a competitive demand.

Related articles
May 29, 2013  

Facebook Pressured to Take Action on Violence Against Women

o-FACEBOOK-RAPE-570

Inaction from the leader of social networks against Women is not anymore acceptable. This is true also for all the words that do not respect others. It is important to understand that it is part of the keys successes of future of social networks. The anonymity may encourage some of us to express what they have worse in them. Innovative Technologies should prevent public to may authorize to express this violence: how to make it?

Related articles
April 22, 2013  

Girls & Math: How to innovate to bust stereotypes

GirlsAndScience

Do girls need special attention to science?

In response, some readers strongly refuted the notion that girls need the extra nudge. But according to Claude Steele, author of Whistling Vivaldi and Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us, it’s not that girls aren’t necessarily interested in science and math, it’s whether they’re discouraged from following their interests because of the persistent stereotype that girls aren’t good at that sort of thing.

Claude Steele has examined this very phenomenon closely for years and has identified it as a stereotype threat. The issue is much more complex than the very basic tendencies of what naturally interests either gender. He pinpoints the problem to what happens after girls follow their interests in science and math studies, when inevitable obstacles come up. He says it’s a subtle but crucial mindset that can make the difference between a girl choosing to go into a STEM (for Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematic)  field — or trying harder on a math or science test — and choosing not to.

Is Math a Gift?

Stanford researcher Carol Dweck, who wrote Is Math a Gift? Beliefs That Put Females at Risk, takes it one step further. Carol Dweck has researched the topic of stereotypes, natural aptitude, and how praising effort or intelligence can be harmful, and she’s come up with a thought-provoking conclusion.

She writes. “Can anyone say for sure that there isn’t some gift that makes males better at math and science? What we can say is that many females have all the ability they need for successful careers in math-related and scientific fields and that the idea of the ‘gift-that-girls-don’t-have’ is likely to be a key part of what’s keeping them from pursuing those careers.”

Where do these stereotypes come from?

Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, associate professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, has also researched the phenomenon and says these detrimental stereotypes are enmeshed in our culture. “It’s pervasive in our cultural narrative,” he said at the Innovative Learning Conference. “‘I’m not this kind of learner or that kind of learner. I’m good at words, but not math.’… It’s a theory about how the world works.”

Societies without these stereotypes don’t impose the same burden, Claude Steele says, and as a result, there are a great deal more women engaging in science and math-based fields. “Poland, India, parts of Asia, where there are many more women participating in math and STEM fields, the stereotype is much weaker. The girls going into those fields don’t experience the same pressure they do in a society like ours where relatively few women participate in these fields. That strengthens the stereotype and the pressure they can feel.”

Where do these stereotypes come from? Cues from the environment that suggest there aren’t many women in this field, Claude Steele says. In short, a self-fulfilling prophecy. “The pictures on the wall don’t show many women as famous mathematicians,” Claude Steele says. “Examples used in math classes are more boy-oriented than girl-oriented.”

How to fix it?

It all comes down to our understanding (and thus, kids’ understanding) that it’s not about a fixed set of abilities, but about what can be learned. Carol Dweck observed in her study that, by the end of eighth grade, “there is a considerable gap between females and males in their math grades— but only for those students who believed that intellectual skills are a gift. When we look at students who believed that intellectual ability could be expanded, the gap is almost gone.”

If we as a society understand that ability is expandable and incrementable, and subject to deliberate practice, the impact of being stereotyped can be dramatically reduced, Claude Steele adds. Schools should practice this strategy, and parents should create an atmosphere at home that learning math and science can be as challenging for girls as for boys — and that the fun lives in solving the challenge.

At Techbridge, the after-school science and math program for girls, founder Linda Kekellis says the exposure to women role models has gone a long way in making careers in STEM fields a real possibility for students. She says more than 95 percent of girls believe engineering is a good career choice for women.

Related articles

April 16, 2013  

Innovation at school: combining Robotics With Poetry?

Robot-Poetry

In 2013, French government is trying to find a way to push France to be more innovative. France is considered a moderately innovative country in Europe (see more details with the previous article TOP4 Leaders in Europe). French government is focusing on education aspect: how to infuse the spirit of innovation at school?

Art and Engineering Can Co-Exist

At the beginning, people thought she was nuts. Sue Mellon, working in United States, gifted support coordinator for Springdale Junior and Senior High/Colfax School in the Allegheny Valley School District, thought 7th and 8th graders could develop a deeper understanding of poetry by playing around with robotics.

“Originally, people looked at me like I was crazy,” Mellon said. Now, two years later, Robotics Poetry is a staple of language arts classes at Springdale and a new grant has students preparing to be peer mentors.

Poetry isn’t always easy for students. But with hands-on engagement, they gain new understanding. Take Robert Frost’s “Pasture.” Instead of just reading and discussing the work in a typical classroom setting, students made 21st-century dioramas with robotic tool kits containing sensors, motors, LEDs, and a controller. One student made a blue plastic wrap lake in an old cardboard photocopy-paper box that vibrated, thanks to the motor, and, lit up, thanks to the LED. When the student said the word “water”—students record themselves reading the poems aloud in the audio-editing program Audacity—the LED turned the plastic wrap a deeper shade of blue. When he got to the bit about the “tottering” calf, the motor made the toy calf vibrate.

Critical for Innovation

The move to include art and design in the push to advance science, engineering, and math is not just a “feel-good” move. It’s critical to the future economy and families’ standard of living. Researchers are finding that although children’s IQ scores have been steadily rising, results on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking—a key measure of creativity—have been on the decline since 1990, just as the demand for more creative thinkers is rising. In a 2010 IBM survey, 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as a top leadership competency of the future.

At a professional development event for local superintendents, the participants had all read Daniel Pink’s book, “A Whole New Mind,” and then Pink came in to discuss the importance of creativity. An executive director of state agency that support the Sue Mellon’s school, spoke to the participants about the importance of “right-brain qualities” like empathy and inventiveness. “The message was loud and clear, and that’s when the movement started. Being strong in math and science wasn’t enough. To meet future workforce needs, we had to address the whole-brain needs of our students.”

See more details on original article

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/04/combining-robotics-with-poetry-art-and-engineering-can-co-exist/

Related articles
April 11, 2013  

Homegrown Efforts to Recruit Women in Silicon Valley 

HomegrowEffortWomenSillicon 
Margit Wennmachers, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz

Language in job description to exclude women

When Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm, wanted to make sure its job postings were reaching the most diverse audience possible, its partners did what most people in Silicon Valley do when they spot a problem: they turned to software.

They used programs that analyze the language in job descriptions to catch phrases that might turn off certain types of applicants:

  • Looking for a candidate who is “off the charts”? Chances are, not that many women will apply.
  • “That’s just not how women talk,” said Margit Wennmachers, a partner at the firm: “They say, ‘Must be highly competent.’ ” .

It is an example of many homegrown efforts across the Valley to change the face of the tech industry. There have always been big organizations hosting conferences and networking events for women. But newer efforts are springing up from inside companies.

To coach women leaders in Silicon Valley

There are programs to teach girls to code, like Girls Who Code, for which companies like Twitter and Google lend office space and teachers. CodeChix, started by engineers at companies like VMware, hosts coding workshops that promise to be “non-alpha.”

The Club is an application-only group trying to provide an alternative to golf courses and men’s membership clubs by coaching women leaders in Silicon Valley. It was founded by Annie Rogaski, a partner at Kilpatrick Townsend, a Valley law firm.

Rachel Sklar, who started a group called Change the Ratio, is introducing an organization called The List where members who pay have access to other women for advice, financing and conference speaking gigs.

“It’s to achieve the function of the classic old boys’ club, which funnels very easy advice and access and opportunity,” Ms. Sklar said.

People to review all job descriptions

At Andreessen Horowitz, the firm asks real people, not just software, to review all job descriptions, too — so in addition to the hiring manager, people who are women, African American and from other minority groups in Silicon Valley have input.

The firm also has a partner in charge of diversity who helps acquire a broad set of candidates for the firm’s talent agency, which its 200 portfolio companies tap for engineering and leadership roles. Despite those efforts, all of the firm’s investing partners are men.

“There’s a huge talent war going on, so we are doing a lot of things to try to surface all kinds of diverse talent and bubble that up to our portfolio companies,” Ms. Wennmachers said.

See articles from Claire Cain Miller

Related articles

April 7, 2013  

How will we be able to touch virtual surface in the future?

Why you should listen to her

Could technology be more touchy feely? Mechanical engineer Katherine J. Kuchenbecker answers this question with a resounding ‘yes’. Katherine researches the design, control and performance of robotic systems that enable a user to touch virtual objects and distant environments as though they were real and within reach. These interfaces combine electromechanical sensors, actuators and computer control, allowing for technology that can fool the human sense of touch, otherwise known as ‘haptics.’

Imagine a tablet computer that lets you feel fabrics and textures, robotic surgical tools that let doctors use their incredibly well-honed sense of touch, video games that allow you to feel hits and computer programs that teach you the movements of a sport. By researching these areas — as well as applications in stroke rehabilitation and assistance for the blind — Katherine seeks to improve our understanding of touch and uncover new opportunities to use it in interactions between humans, computers and machines.

She graduated from Stanford University. She started as assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2010, Katherine has been named to the Popular Science Brilliant 10. She is also an avid photographer, and played volleyball at Stanford for two seasons.

The future of touch screens in USA

As we are used to communicate by screens and keyboards a lot of the perception of the world misses the real touch. No matter that the surface of smartphones‘ touchscreen always feels the same. No matter if we look at dog, a mountain, a tree, a baby, a cake, the usual playing cats or a volcano. All we can feel with our hands is a touchscreen.

Without the representation of the haptic experience, a lot of perceptions cannot be appreciated. Have a look at this inspiring TED talk by Katherine J. Kuchenbecker about the technology of touch to see how innovative technology can leverage the sensations the world produces on our skin and how our bodies orient on them.

Learn about the field of haptics, and how it could change everything from the way we shop online to how dentists learn the telltale feel of a cavity. Maybe these ideas will be the basis for touchscreen that really let us touch the world.

Virtual reality you can touch in Europe

Researchers at the Computer Vision Lab at ETH Zurich have also developed a method with which they can produce virtual copies of real objects. The copies can be touched and even sent via the Internet. By incorporating the sense of touch, the user can delve deeper into virtual reality.

VirtualTouch

Related articles of this post

Related articles

April 1, 2013  

Why is there less women in IT between 80’s and 2010 in USA?

WomenITUSA

In the early 1980s, women accounted for just over 37% of all US college students earning bachelor’s degrees in computer science. By 2010, that percentage had fallen to a little more than 17%, according to latest available data from the National Science Foundation.

Sheryl Sandberg is calling on women to be more assertive, or to “lean in,” as she writes in her book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. The book comes out at a time when women are significantly under-represented in US data centers.

Last year, women held only 26% of the jobs in computer-related occupations, up from 25% from 2011. That slight uptick notwithstanding, the overall number of female IT professionals has declined steadily since 2000, when women’s share of the computer-related jobs pool hit a peak of nearly 30%, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT).

Sandberg’s book has been criticised for its focus on “changing the women rather than changing the system,” said Jenny Slade, communications director at NCWIT. “But frankly, if she’d written a polemic on institutional bias in the workplace, she’d have been criticised for painting women as victims.”

Kim Stevenson, vice president and CIO at Intel, one of 24 female CIOs in Fortune 100 companies, said her company’s success in increasing the number of female employees in mid- to senior-level technical jobs since 2004 isn’t a fluke. Stevenson noted that Intel offers mentoring programs and opportunities for network-building for women – activities that Sandberg champions. The Women at Intel Network has 22 chapters.

Stevenson doesn’t share Sandberg’s view that progress for women has stalled, though she agrees that more can be done.

Karie Willyerd, vice president of learning and social adoption at SAP, said that unflattering stereotypes, like the depictions of engineers in the popular comic strip Dilbert, may have discouraged young girls from thinking about IT careers. But recent moves by building block maker Lego and other companies to create products aimed at exposing young girls to engineering could begin to change the cultural message, she added.

Related articles
March 30, 2013  

Emerging Markets: Opportunities for Energy Innovation

WomanGreenEnergy

Emerging markets provide attractive opportunities for innovative energy systems. The competitive advantage of renewable over traditional energy sources is greater than in developed countries. However, socio-economic, cultural, and policy issues might interfere with the innovation process in these countries.

The green revolution must include and empower women. According to Katherine Lucey, founder & CEO of Solar Sister, the main cultural barrier for energy innovation in Africa is gender. Women need access to electricity to bring progress in the community.

Brazil is an emerging global leader in the renewable energy industry, gaining this position by implementing favorable policies and market mechanisms, such as reverse auctions, aimed to remove financial barriers for the energy innovation progress. Today, wind energy represents 25% of Brazilian market share and Lauro Fiuza, VP for International Relations of ABEEolica, said the next step will be bringing solar to the same level, thus creating a complementary system that will make renewables a major power generation source in Brazil.

In developing countries, solar and wind energy are already cost competitive. Technological, financial, and policy innovations are creating win-win conditions for renewables and bringing national energy independence. Although there is not a right set of energy policies for every country, Dr. Kelly Sims Gallagher, associate professor of energy and environment policy at Tufts University, said those countries experimenting with policy solutions – e.g. China – are better positioned than countries spending too much time deciding the right strategy to implement.

See more details

Related articles
« Older Posts