Girls have the geek gene, too

(AI)
By Jen Gerson. TheStar.com. "On Thursday, women will take over Markham's Cascon 2006, one of the largest computer conferences in Canada to discuss the challenges of being wanted for your big, beautiful, techie-competent grey matter. I.D. chatted with one of the key speakers, Dr. Telle Whitney, president of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, about why young women are frightened by the prospect of joining a field dominated by intelligent men who have no idea how to please them. Q So, women and technology. Why do they need their own symposium? A At one point in computer science, women were almost 40 per cent of the bachelors degrees in the United States and right now and now they're closer to 27 per cent. I think many of the research institutions, it's less than 20 per cent in computer science and in engineering, it's probably closer to 11 per cent graduating. And so there's not that many women. ... Q Should we bring more women in? Aren't there few enough jobs in technology that we need to bring women too, into it? A These companies are hiring. There are not enough engineers to fill the jobs that they have. According to the department of labour, eight out of 10 of the fastest-growing industries in the U.S. have an I.T. component. ..."