Less than 16 percent of the UK IT industry’s 1.2 million workforce is made up of women. The industry has an image problem and it’s time we addressed it as a community. CompTIA’s Advancing Women in IT (AWIT) Community is acting to help.
Appealing to the Youth
The need to appeal to the younger generation is at the core of this issue. Applications to computer science schools continue to fall. Left unchecked, this will significantly reduce the volume of talent entering the industry and exacerbate a skills gap estimated to reach 700,000 IT professionals across Europe by 2015.
“The primary barrier to interest in IT as a career is that young people — girls, especially — don’t understand the full range of options available to them,” said Nancy Hammervik, CompTIA’s senior vice president for industry relations. “But when they’re exposed to specific job and career opportunities, their interest level jumps. We’ve taken the next step to reach out directly to women and girls on the wonderful opportunities available to them in our industry.”
Dream IT
CompTIA’s Advancing Women in IT initiative — driven by a group of trailblazing female entrepreneurs — aims to engage at the grass-root level and transform the representation of women in IT with its new initiative: Dream IT. The brainchild of CompTIA’s Advancing Women in IT Community; the Dream IT initiative offers ready-made presentation materials that can be used by anyone looking to spread the fantastic opportunities available to women and girls in the IT industry.
Delivering the message directly to schools and colleges via a series of workshops, free educational tools and events, the program aims to engage more than 10,000 people by the end of 2014. “If we are to reverse the downward trend of young women taking an interest in IT then we must break the stereotype that IT is for geeks,” said Firebrand Training’s UK Managing Director Emma Seaman.
Dream IT goes hand-in-hand with the Career Resource Center, an online destination for people who want to learn about IT careers and promote women entering and advancing their work in information technology. The new Career Resource Center contains a wealth of information and career resources; all with the expressed aim of showing women that IT is a great place to work. Dream IT and the Career Resource Center are both seen as a huge boost in the battle to attract more women into the IT workforce.
If you’re interested in advancing women in IT, why not head over to the Dream IT site and explore to find out all the ways you can get involved: You can share your story, host presentations and volunteer to be a Dream IT speaker. What are you waiting for?
Edward Jones, part of Firebrand’s global marketing team, works to serve the IT community with news, reviews and technical how-to guides.
