According to a survey from Cisco unveiled last month the information and communications technology (ICT) sector is still failing to attract female graduates across Europe. The “Women and ICT Whitepaper” claims that less than one in five computer scientists in the European Union is female despite roughly similar interest and aptitude in computing in secondary level education.

But is new and social media challenging the traditional view of a career in ICT as ‘nerdy’ or masculine? NMK sought out some prominent women in ICT and new media to find out.

Skills Shortage

Dr Sue Black is Head of Department of Information and Software Systems at the University of Westminster. She founded the BCSWomen Specialist Group and is a Council member and believes that technology is becoming increasingly attractive in general because is it now so pervasive in so many areas.

“In the 1960s the male/female split in was about 50/50 which most people, including me, nowadays find very surprising,” she told NMK. “Something has obviously gone wrong along the way, which is a real shame. I think there is a real opportunity now for more women than ever to get involved.”

Dr Black says that the industry has moved away from the days when most people in technology were programmers.

“The advent of new media and social media has also helped. The IT profession has been perceived as being very macho in the past. That has also put women and girls off thinking about a career in technology,” she added. “There is currently a skills shortage in technology and this will increase as times goes on if something is not done. This can be looked at as bad news, but, it is also good news as it means that there will be many jobs around in technology for some time to come.”

Sisters Are Doing IT For Themselves

Silicon Stilettos is a network and a meet-up for women in technology, start-ups and social media. Its main aim to bring the women working in the tech industry together and encourage conversation, according to its founder, Zuzanna Pasierbinska-Wilson, who also heads up communications at business collaboration firm Huddle. The Silicon Stilettos meet-ups are attended by entrepreneurs, developers, marketers and public relations professionals.

“[Social media is] bridging the gap between having to be really technical and the opportunity to play with cool technology. Then, of course, there's no stigma attached to it. Social media is so new that it hasn't been yet categorised as a 'male' or 'female' industry,” she said.

Work To Be Done

Shelley Taylor (pictured) is a female Internet entrepreneur and founder of entertainment social network All Dig Down. She believes that while a career in digital media may be more appealing to women than more generic ICT jobs, such as programming or IT management, neither digital media nor the wider ICT industry can boast of many women at the top of their profession.

“Digital media requires knowledge of media and IT. There are loads more women in the traditional music business and other brick and mortar entertainment companies than in IT, and many of those drawn into digital entertainment as the more modern cousin of a business they already know something about,” she said. “The difficulty arises when it is necessary to manage the IT part of the business and to communicate with men who have not typically had to interact with women. So, there may be women in the digital entertainment companies but very, very few who interface with those developers that build and maintain the digital platforms; especially since they will not have learned the vocabulary of code and IT. Since this communication is critical to the creation of digital entertainment platforms there won't be very many women at high levels until they have at least learned to translate between these two worlds.”