Moving girls out of the shadows
Last year, six young enthusiastic girls from across Europe were each given the chance to accompany a successful female engineer or technician as they went about a day's work. Their experiences, in particular how the day influenced their opinion of a career in information and communication technologies (ICT), were recorded in a series of video diaries, which were presented at the European Commission on 8 March. ICT in all its forms has become an important part of our everyday lives. Yet, few young people, especially women, are interested in pursuing computer-related studies, or are attracted to a career in ICT. 'I want to sound an alarm bell today,' said Vivien Reding, EU Information Society and Media Commissioner, who pointed to some worrying figures. Although the number of overall graduates in computer sciences grew by 133% from 1998 to 2004, the proportion of women computer graduates fell from 25% in 1998 to 22% in 2006 in the EU, compared to 27% in Canada, 28% in the US and 38% in South Korea. By 2010, it is estimated that Europe will be missing 300,000 IT professionals from the workforce. Of those few women who do decide to go on and make a career in the ICT industry, many end up leaving while others never manage to reach senior management positions. In 14 European ICT companies, less than 10% of board members are women. In order to change this trend, Ms Reding said it was important to speak to young girls very early on about the career prospects in the ICT sector. The video diaries, which are to be distributed in schools and women's associations across Europe, aim to highlight the real nature of the work behind the ubiquitous term ICT. Five leading technology companies (BT, Cisco, Infineon, Motorola and Nokia) took part in this first pilot exercise, together with the Ms Reding, who was shadowed for a day by a young girl during the 2006 IST Event in Helsinki. 'The videos really give a good impression to girls outside about how interesting it is to work in ICT,' said Ms Reding. 'Challenging, rewarding, cool!' That is how the Commissioner hopes young girls will regard a career ICT in the future. Many of girls who shadowed the engineers and technicians spoke of how the experience helped to change pre-conceived notions of the sector and the people who worked in it. Mariko Primarolo (16) was the shadow of a researcher at BT, a UK telecoms company. 'When you think of ICT, you immediately think of computers and skinny little nerds,' she told CORDIS News. Girls, she added, are more interested in human side of work and in communication face-to-face. Thanks to the shadowing exercise, Ms Primarolo now sees that ICT is about much more than the technology. It is also, she found out, about helping people in their everyday lives. During her visit to BT, she was shown demonstrations of IT solutions that were really making a difference in people's every day lives. She was particularly excited by the systems to monitor the elderly, providing them with independent living options, and a nifty device which can help people better cope with their stress levels. 'Initiatives like these are good in the sense that they can highlight best practices of what some of the companies are doing to promote diversity as a whole,' said Caroline Persson, BT's European policy advisor, who coordinated the BT project. She said that she hoped the experiment would increase the profile of diversity on the business agenda. Magda Rabiej, a software engineer from Motorola in Poland, also believes that initiatives like the shadowing experiment are important. 'I remember the kind of doubts I had at 17 about my future career,' she told CORDIS News. 'When I first went to high school, I was sure I wanted to do IT, but people who I talked to tried to convince me that IT was not a career for women. Ms Rabiej decided to get involved in her company's diversity project to encourage young people, especially girls, to take an interest in ICT. 'It's important to have someone saying 'don't worry, it's not as complicated as you think it is, it's not just people sitting in front of a computer,' she said. Last year, Ms Rabiej was shadowed by Ania Pers (17), a student from Krakow. During their one day together, she sought to show her 'shadow girl' how the technology she developed involved working outside of the office on fun projects. For Ms Rabiej, ICT is as much about communication as it is about the technology. 'It's about human interaction, working in groups, and talking with the customers,' she told CORDIS News. Sometimes, however, there is a communication gap between engineers and customers on product design. 'IT engineers find it hard to translate everyday life into IT language,' she explained. Similarly, engineers may find it hard to relay their design ideas to the customer. If the communication breaks down, then the product is likely to fail. Ms Rabiej believes that given their innate ability to communicate, women are perfectly positioned to work in the sector and translate these ideas in a way which is easy to understand. Since launching their diversity programme seven years ago, Motorola has witnessed a change in young girls' opinions towards ICT. 'At the start of the project, only 2% of students finishing computer studies in Krakow universities were women. Last year, girls represented about 10% of all students finishing technology studies,' explained Justyna Ozog, a public relations expert from Motorola Poland. Although Motorola does not claim to have brought about this change, like all the companies involved it feels it is helping to influence the market and tear down the barriers and stereotypes surrounding ICT. Many of the girls involved in the shadowing had not given a career in information technology a second thought. Now, however, all of them seem to be seriously considering it among other career options. So it is mission accomplished for the exercise, or is it? Ms Reding believes there is more work still to be done. From the industry side, there is a need to change the business culture to make careers in IT more attractive to girls. She thanked those companies involved and called on others in the industry to repeat the exercise. For its part, the Commission will publish a study in the coming months on the level of female participation in computer-related studies and ICT careers, hoping to raise further awareness of the issue. Ms Reding also promised to take the video diaries to the World Economic Forum in Davos next year to encourage industry worldwide to address the deficit of female IT professionals.