Written with Ilenia Maietta.
Women have made vital contributions to computer science ever since Ada Lovelace debugged the first algorithm for an actual computer (written by Charles Babbage) almost 200 years ago. Despite this, women make up only a fraction (25%) of the STEM workforce: only about a fifth of senior tech roles and only a fifth of computer science students are women. The problem starts early: research by the National Centre for Computing Education suggests that female student’s intension to study computing drops off between the ages of 8 and 13. Ilenia Maietta, a computer science student at Queen Mary, talks about her experiences of studying in a male-dominated field and how she is helping to build a network for other women in tech.
Continues at the CS4FN blog…