“The solution [to this under-representation] requires collaboration and allyship,” said Janeya Griffin, founder and CEO of The Commercializer, which provides consulting services to minority-serving institutions.

In celebration of Women’s History Month, SpringBoard Incubators and sportswear company Sean John hosted the State of Women In Technology, which was a panel featuring several women from different areas of technology to discuss their experiences, and how the industry can do better. Speakers included Cheresse Owens-Petty, senior manager of digital learning at Marriott International; Kerry O’Brien, a registered nurse who does a lot of work around bringing technology into nursing to improve patient outcomes; Charlie Oliver, founder and CEO of Tech 2025; Alicia Ray, senior manager of product marketing and strategy at FreeWheel; Veronica Isaac, lead project manager for PSEG Long Island; and Sarah Angel-Johnson, CIO of Save the Children. The panel was moderated by Griffin. 

RELATED CONTENT: There’s a diversity problem in the tech industry and it’s not getting any better

Angel-Johnson believes the way we raise our children has a huge impact on womens’ success in the workforce. For example, we raise girls teaching things like “play nice, get along” and just general conflict avoidance, while boys are taught to tough it out or go “rough and tumble it.” She even noticed this creeping into the way she had been raising her own girls. “I would look to how we raise our girls and changing the way that we nurture and cultivate,” she said. 

Oliver also recommends women be aware of the narratives they’re being fed throughout life, from politicians, the media, and even your family. “If there’s one thing I learned from sitting in a room of older white men who are privileged, highly educated, well-paid, and sitting in on their creative process when they were coming up with all this great stuff, and they would turn to me, and I’m the script coordinator in the room so I have to turn this into a script at the end of the night, and they would turn to me and say ‘Charlie, what did you think of it?’ Now they in their ego were saying it was great, and I would look at them and tell them straight out this is problematic and I would give them my feedback.” What she got from that experience was that not only was she able to express her thoughts, but those other writers began to see that she had good ideas. 

When describing being a woman in technology, one word comes to mind for Oliver: resilience. “If you are a woman in tech, you understand what it means to have to fight,” she said.

Oliver predicts an explosion in the number of women-owned businesses in the next three years. Owens-Petty explained that because of the pandemic a lot of women were forced to leave their jobs, but that doesn’t mean they stopped working; they’re at home learning and gaining knowledge. “They’re not gonna be working for you, but they will be working. So just watch and see what happens in the next three years,” said Owens-Petty.

A survey from Red Hat backs this up, citing that 20% of adults in Europe surveyed took up computer programming as a new skill during the pandemic.

“We have a place that is rightfully ours,” said Oliver. “That development of the future, that we haven’t always rightly been a part of…I can tell you it is imperative for the sake of our survival that women step forward and do what we’re supposed to do.”

Going back to the idea of being more aware of the things we teach our children, Isaac added that children are very technically savvy and already have a jump on where we are in terms of knowledge about technology. She said that she encourages her two boys, and younger people that she mentors, to always be looking for apps or technology that will help them.

Isaac also recommends getting certifications for different technologies, and that sometimes these certifications are free or low-cost. For example, Salesforce and AWS are two technologies that you can get certified in that will put you ahead. “You can get the knowledge of a professional before you’re even in the workforce,” said Isaac.

Isaac also added that it can be beneficial to reach out and help someone who is struggling in their technical journey because often what ends up happening is you both learn together. 

Five key practices companies should adopt
Almost half of women in technology leave the industry by the age of 35, and a non-inclusive company culture is a main contributor for their leaving, according to the Resetting Tech Culture survey conducted by Accenture and Girls Who Code, which surveyed 2,700 college students, 500 senior HR executives, and 1,990 tech workers. 

The report listed five key cultural practices that companies can adopt to help women on their teams thrive: 

1. Providing and encouraging parental leave for both parents
2. Setting targets and goals for diversity in leadership roles
3. Women-specific support, such as mentors, sponsors, and employee resource networks
4. Rewards for creativity and innovation
5. Inclusive networking to replace the typical networking spots of after-work drinks or sporting events, such as an event that takes place during work hours. 

Three ways to boost your career in technology
In addition, Angel-Johnson listed three things women can do as well to further their careers in technology: branding, mentoring, and leaving a legacy. Branding involves looking at your strengths and determining how they differentiate you from others. For example, Angel-Johnson sees herself as a change agent, so she focuses on having people see that whenever she’s around she can help make change happen. 

She listed four different types of mentors:

1. Peer mentor, who is on the same level as you
2. Next-step mentor, who is someone in a position you could see yourself in as your next career step
3. Career vision mentor, who is someone that is where you see yourself at five or 10 years down the road
4. Reverse mentors, who are currently in places in their career that you are now at. For example, a technical lead’s reverse mentor could be an entry-level dev. Angel-Johnson said this is one of the most important types of mentors because it can help you stay educated on the newest technologies. 

Finally, consider the legacy you want to leave behind as a woman in technology. Angel-Johnson describes a class she took where she had an assignment to write her own obituary. She admitted that it was a bit morbid, but it did force her to think of a few things. She noted that it’s important to have measurable impacts for this step in order to differentiate you from others. “If you didn’t measure it, it didn’t happen,” she said.  

The post How to improve the state of women in technology appeared first on SD Times.

That tweet inspired hybrid IT solutions provider Ensono, where Classon is director of public cloud product, to conduct a report about women’s experiences at tech conferences. The results are dismal. One in four women experience sexual harassment at tech conferences. Only 25 percent of keynote speeches in the last three years have been made by a woman. Seventy percent of women who have been on panels at a conference were the only women on the panel.

While some tech conferences are trying to create more inclusive spaces for all technologists, there’s still a long way to go. In the meantime, at least there’s Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC), a yearly gathering of women (including transgender and non-binary) technologists put on by AnitaB.org. The event is currently taking place in Orlando, FL until October 4th.

RELATED CONTENT: There’s a diversity problem in the tech industry and it’s not getting any better

The event is named for Grace Hopper, a rear admiral in the US Navy who invented the first compiler in 1952. This led to the creation of the COBOL programming language, which was one of the first high-level programming languages.

Without Grace Hopper’s contributions, programming as we know it today wouldn’t exist. “Admiral Hopper broke down walls in part by simply acting as if those walls didn’t exist,” said Dr. Rebecca Parsons, CTO of ThoughtWorks and member of AnitaB.org’s Board of Trustees. “She was her own person and refused to be defined by others and their expectations of her.”

Kesha Williams, AWS ML Hero, Alexa Champion, and Technical Instructor at A Cloud Guru, believes that GHC can be defined in one word: “empowering.”

“Where else can you find so many women software engineers, technical leads, and senior executives coming together to talk about what we do with technology and sharing our lessons learned? Nowhere! GHC is structured to enable women to gain career guidance, technical knowledge and application of that knowledge in the real world, and to build and foster professional networks,” said Williams.

According to Williams, Grace Hopper Celebration will be a four day event this year, making it longer than it was in previous years. First day events included the First Timer’s Orientation, Career Fair Hall Crawl, and the keynote session and other sessions, she explained.

The event also features mentoring circles. According to Williams, who will be a mentor this year, these allow attendees to get “one-on-one advice with an industry expert in small groups of 10.” There are 66 mentors this year corresponding to a particular topic, she explained. “Attendees choose a topic, sit at the corresponding table and chat with a mentor for 20 minutes. Every 20 minutes, attendees switch tables and chat with a different mentor on a different topic. It’s sort of like ‘speed dating’ but for technology concepts!”

Williams recommends that anyone in a STEM field who has “ever felt alone, isolated, or like you are the minority in your classes, office meetings, or software teams,” should attend as there will be thousands of women there with those same experiences.

“Women/non-binary technologists should attend GHC because it is the largest gathering of its kind in the world and there is no other experience quite like it,” said Parsons. “Spending four days soaking in educational sessions on both career issues and technology, and mingling with other talented technologists will leave you inspired and empowered. And you’ll discover new connections that may last a lifetime.”

For first-time attendees, Williams offers up some advice to help them get the most out of the event:

• Pre-register for the sessions you want to attend, as popular sessions will fill up quickly
• Add your resume to the GHC resume database in addition to bringing printed copies to the event
  • Also, bring professional looking clothes in the event that you’re offered an interview at the event
• Bring an extra bag for swag

Hear from these women in technology about what their experiences at the event have been like and what it meant:

Imris Curry, computational mathematics major at RIT and a leader in RIT’s Women in Computing organization
“Last year was my first time at Grace Hopper, and I just remember being in awe of the spectacle. Thousands of women gathered to celebrate computing, with companies pulling out all the stops to build giant booths at the career fair. I was certainly overwhelmed, but I was also inspired by all the positive, uplifting messages around the conference. I had the opportunity to interview for and eventually get job opportunities with companies I likely wouldn’t have interacted with otherwise…I have attended other conferences, and Grace Hopper stands out above the rest in its positive messaging. The conference is not just about tech, but also about uplifting its attendees. It builds community in a way I don’t usually see other conferences do.”

Nancy Wang, co-founder and CEO at AWIP and head of product management at Amazon Web Services (AWS)
“Grace Hopper has become a mecca for technologies, diversity advocates, and corporations who are looking to draw from the well of collective talent. This year, I am honored to join leaders from GitHub, Heroku, and Facebook as speakers on a panel that will explore ‘Building Products for Developers.’ As one of the more underrepresented fields among tech (which itself is underrepresented), the infrastructure and dev tools space is one that is ripe for more inclusion. As a woman of color myself, I want to see the next generation of technical product managers at Amazon Web Services comprising of more women.

I look forward to participating in the Senior Leadership Track this year at GHC, which is a focus group that the executive women of GHC put together to create community and foster nextgen leaders. Recently, I have been asked by Amazon Web Services leadership to foster more D&I initiatives, and this will be a great forum for me to gain best practices from other corporate leaders.”

Gail Frederick, VP of Mobile and Developer Ecosystem, GM of eBay Portland
“For me, Grace Hopper is one of the most exciting times of the year. We are celebrating women in technology, and we are inviting a growing number of young women professionals into our ranks. Recruiting talent at the event is invigorating and rewarding for me as a tech leader. When I started in tech, there wasn’t a conference like this that I could attend that would encourage me, mentor me or connect me with larger companies – I had to figure it out on my own. Grace Hopper is different than other conferences, it has a strong focus on inclusion through mentoring, workshops and even senior management panels to help educate and grow our future technologists. It’s a privilege to be invited to this conference year after year, having eBay’s men and women continuing to drive diversity initiatives for the company and the industry.”

Ya Xu, head of data science at LinkedIn
“GHC is a celebration of all women technologists, whether they’re still in school or are seasoned veterans. There’s always something new to learn for each and every attendee—not every tech conference is so relevant to such a wide range of experience levels. One of my favorite GHC memories is helping a college student who stopped by our LinkedIn booth one year. She was interested in pursuing a career in data science, but was majoring in a different discipline. Together, we worked to chart out the courses and experience she would need to make the transition. I really enjoy the environment where I can have conversations like that, and then have my very next discussion be about mid-career management challenges with a senior engineer. It’s a great opportunity for us to all learn from people with different experience levels and interests.”

Kesha Williams, AWS ML Hero, Alexa champion, and technical instructor at A Cloud Guru
“In an industry where women tend to be the minority, imagine attending a tech event where you are the majority? An event that at its core celebrates a woman pioneer in the computer programming industry, Grace Hopper. An event where you will see women technologists innovating, creating, and driving change and growth in their organizations in a major way. I believe the true impact of GHC is that is has the ability to change how you see yourself, your career, and your overall existence as a woman in tech. You will no longer see yourself as a minority! You will see yourself as a CEO, CTO, VP, or a startup founder, and you will know that you are not alone. I find it very empowering to see thousands of women in tech; the experience can cause you to walk away with an increased sense of belonging and a renewed excitement for computer science and the future of tech.”

Neeha Bollepalli, technical lead at PROS
“I attended Grace Hopper Conference (GHC) for the first time last year and was blown away. The number one thing I noticed which made GHC stand apart from other tech conferences that I have attended in the past (O’Reilly Fluent Conference, QCon, NFJS) were the number of women and the diversity among them. I could see myself in the attendees, presenters, organizers and at once I felt understood and that I belonged.

The presenters ranged from college students, career beginners, seasoned professions, tech leaders to mom entrepreneurs. I could relate to them in so many ways, being a tech lead at my own workplace and a mom of 2 young children. I noticed these women came from very similar background as I did and were breaking barriers and leading the world in technology. They inspired me to do more and speak louder. I resolved to try harder at work and made a goal to become a GHC presenter in 2019.”

Frances Jurek, software engineer at PROS
“The Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) is extraordinary. The first day begins with a stadium full of people in technology from all over the globe – and nearly all of them are women. To be literally surrounded by over 20,000 inspiring and inquisitive women is energizing. The three days are packed with fascinating presentations ranging from emerging tech to navigating your career path, yet the atmosphere is completely different than other tech conferences. Besides being far more diverse in more ways than simply gender, the vibe is more friendly, less competitive, and more about raising each other up to even higher levels. It’s a remarkable experience that’s difficult to put into words.

At both work and my daily tech life, I often think back to something I have learned at GHC. Whether it’s sharing what I learned about accessibility on the web, or how Google Safe Browsing is helping protect us, or even how to transform self-criticism into self-encouragement, the Grace Hopper Celebration has greatly impacted both my career and my life.”

Dolly Singh, head of talent innovation at ServiceTitan
“This year, at GHC19, I’ve been given the distinct honor of speaking for a select group of roughly 400 executive female leaders. These women are coming from all four corners of the globe to celebrate themselves, their peers and the progress of women in the world as a whole. I can’t help but feel like these interactions and opportunities are even more critical in the current political climate, when parts of the world appear to be moving backwards. It’s even more critical that we channel our voices and resist any attempts to defile our progress. My hope will be to bring energy to the women to whom I’m lucky enough to present to and take energy from all the amazing women I will hear from and meet.

The mathematical equation for Power is Energy divided by Time (P = E/T); GHC creates a space for us to bring together the energy (E) from thousands of remarkable women, and packing it into a dense time (T) and place, giving us collectively more power (P) than we could ever have alone. That is the true legacy of Grace Hopper, beyond her brilliance and her grit. She is not just an icon, but a reminder of our potential and our power as women; a power that is exponentially more powerful when we pool our networks and resources, and when we are committed allies and advocates for one another.”

The post Grace Hopper Celebration is more than just a tech conference appeared first on SD Times.

“Android Things makes building connected embedded devices easy by providing the same Android development tools, best-in-class Android framework, and Google APIs that make developers successful on mobile. Since the initial preview launch back in December, the community has turned some amazing ideas into exciting prototypes using the platform,” Dave Smith, developer advocate for IoT at Google, wrote in a post.

KITT.AI joins Baidu
KITT.AI is joining Baidu, a search, AI, and autonomous driving company, so it can reach more developers in the next few years. The goal of the joint mission is to make the complex world simpler with natural language technologies.

According to KITT.AI founder and CEO Xuchen Yao in a blog post, “KITT.AI’s products are deployed in smart phone apps, speakers, appliances, web chat, cars, homes, conference rooms, offices, hospitals, and even telephone lines.” With this announcement, nothing will change in existing products or brands within KITT.AI, and the company will continue to support its developers as a Baidu company, said Yao.

Akamai partners with Girls Who Code
Akamai Technologies will serve as a host company for the Girls Who Code seven-week Summer Immersion Program this year, so rising 11th and 12th grade girls can learn engineering skills, update their resumes and LinkedIn profiles, and participate in a “How the Internet Works” game.

“The imbalance in the numbers of women focused on careers in computer science, software development and Internet technologies continues to be one of our industry’s biggest challenges,” said Tom Leighton, CEO at Akamai. “Partnering with Girls Who Code is an important step towards better preparing young women for technology jobs – an investment, we believe, that is vital to the future of technology and innovation.”

Those in the program will also get a chance to tour Akamai’s Network Operations Control Center, learn computer skills training, and more.

Microsoft to reorganize for the cloud
Microsoft is reportedly planning a reorganization in its sales department to better focus on its cloud initiatives. According to a Bloomberg report, the company wants to improve its cloud software sales, and the restructuring could result in the loss of jobs for some employees. The changes will impact marketing efforts and could result in smaller personnel changes.

The full story is available here.

The post Android Things joins Hackster.io, Baidu acquires KITT.AI, and Akamai to host Girls Who Code — SD Times news digest: July 5, 2017 appeared first on SD Times.

Ganatra didn’t move to the United States just to stay at the bottom of the ladder. Ever since she finished her schooling in Mumbai, India, she’s been committed to improving the world of financial services through technology.

The education system is different in India, according to Ganatra, but she said that in its own ways, it has progressed for females much like it has in the United States. However, in many countries (including India), getting women to pursue STEM careers is still a challenge.

(Related: Woman uses wearables to get other women into coding)

“While I was graduating, there were a lot of men in computer science programs, so that’s not a problem I guess in India,” said Ganatra. “But after graduation, continuing that computer science and engineering work, that’s the biggest challenge in India.”

She began her schooling in India and received a bachelor’s degree in computer science and information technology from the University of Mumbai, and then completed her masters in computer science at Stanford University. Ganatra said she always wanted to get an American education, so when she came to the United States, she made sure to take plenty of computer science courses and learn more about the technology industry.

Before she moved to Stockpile (a company that makes it easier for the average person to buy stocks), Ganatra worked at several large organizations like Microsoft, where she served as a software engineer. At Microsoft, one of her main tasks was integrating and developing custom solutions around a third-party billing platform to enable purchases using credit cards and invoices for online services.

In a later role at Microsoft, she worked on multiple releases of Microsoft’s online commerce platform’s billing team, where she tackled challenges in the platform’s billing infrastructure.

Old lessons in new turf
Leaving the big company culture, she worked as a senior software engineer at Zong, which was later acquired by PayPal. Once acquired, she became the senior engineering manager and led the Digital Goods organization at the company.

“[Zong] was a very small startup, so it was a big change for me to move from a big company like Microsoft to a really small startup, but that was the culture in Silicon Valley,” said Ganatra.

A major part of her career was spent at Facebook, where she was the head of engineering for payments. There she led the end-to-end payments platform and products, managing a large team of engineers and engineering managers. At Facebook, she participated in the open culture and worked in hackathons as well as hands-on Android development, which eventually became a successful product launch for a new way to buy or sell within Facebook groups.

Along the way, Ganatra learned plenty of lessons that she plans on applying to her role as CTO at Stockpile. To start, she wants to make sure that stock investment becomes accessible, affordable and easy for everyone to use because right now, only 14% of Americans own direct stock since “It’s too expensive or complicated to open a brokerage account,” she said.

“We are on a mission to change that and make it easy.”

Her next goal is to assemble a great team, because without one, there is no way to build a meaningful product that customers find valuable.

“We have a small team right now, so building and expanding that team and building a great engineering culture is one of my top goals here at Stockpile,” said Ganatra. “First and foremost, I want to help build a meaningful product that our customers love.”

She said a lot of these lessons were learned at Facebook because it is a company that is known to have a great, open and transparent engineering culture. She said applying some of these strategies will be a challenge since Facebook is large and Stockpile is a small startup, but one lesson she learned is to use quick experimentation while listening to customers along the way.

“Moving fast is one of the big keys of the innovation culture that Facebook has, so I want to apply that to Stockpile,” said Ganatra.

Other lessons she is taking to Stockpile include learning how to minimize operational and manual work and automating as much as possible. Her third goal is to foster innovation, and to do that she plans on holding hackathons and listening to everyone, even those in the company who are not on a managerial level.

“I’m a big believer that great ideas come from the bottom up, so organizing and participating in hackathons is a key principle to building a great culture,” said Ganatra.

Besides the challenges of building a solid engineering team, Ganatra has also faced industry challenges along the way, like dealing with gender bias in a male-populated industry. According to “Double Jeopardy Report” by UC Hastings College of the Law, there are a variety of biases pushing women out of STEM. At least 36% of white women and 41% of Asian women report that at work, they find themselves pressured to play a stereotypical feminine role, which means toning down assertiveness or aggressiveness.

Ganatra has experienced this bias first-hand and said that while she has been building her career, she has faced hard feedback that her male counterparts have not received.

“I kind of always receive feedback like I’m too aggressive or too intimidating, because that’s just how I am,” said Ganatra. “I’m very focused and opinionated, and sometimes that’s hard for people to see, and usually men don’t get that feedback. So that has been challenging in my career.”

The way she has approached this bias has been to ask for a more concrete example because any feedback in the work environment is “a gift,” she said. At Facebook and PayPal, she had professional coaches where she was fortunate to be given strategies and help to work through these challenges. She still thinks, however, it is unfair for only females to get this type of feedback.

“The problem is that it’s really unintentional. It’s not because they give feedback to me or any of the females because we are female, it’s just how different the society is,” said Ganatra. “Overall, I would say it’s just that people don’t realize that this is happening or this is a real problem.”

Ganatra never had an issue going after what she wanted because she learned early in her career to advocate for herself. She noticed that women spend time underestimating themselves while their male colleagues seem to leap at opportunities.

“Women aren’t advocating for themselves,” said Ganatra. “Women don’t come and tell me, ‘Hey I want to get to the next level,’ or, ‘I’m ready for the next level,’ while men do that a lot.”

She said the biggest thing that women have achieved in the industry is recognition that there is an existing problem of getting women to continue their STEM education in both college and beyond.

“I think we have gotten better at each stage, but there is still a lot of implementing to do,” said Ganatra. “One of the biggest things is lack of female role models and mentorship in the workplace.”

She said women should seek role models from the group or environment that they work in, and if there are not that many, seek a mentor outside of the organization.

“Keep going and believe in your abilities. You can do it!” said Ganatra. “Never be afraid to take a leadership position—not just ones that are offered, but seek out these opportunities and aim high.”

The post Bringing lessons learned at Facebook to stocks startup appeared first on SD Times.

Today, the Summer Immersion Program kicked off in Washington D.C., and it’s supported and hosted by AOL Charitable Foundation, AT&T, BSA, Capital One, Lockheed Martin.

The Chicago program also kicked off, and this year it is hosted and supported by organizations like Accenture, Microsoft, Synchrony Financial, the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Computer Science and Center for Research on Women and Gender departments, and Verizon.

(Related: National Women in Engineering Day highlights importance of female leaders)

This year, the Girls Who Code Summer Immersion Program will reach 1,560 11th- and 12th-grade girls in cities like New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Miami, Seattle, Newark, N.J., and across the San Francisco Bay Area. Programs are also being held in Austin and Atlanta for the first time.

The Summer Immersion Program is a seven-week computer science course that gives students the fundamental knowledge of computer science. It also gives girls a chance to gain exposure in the tech industry and from women who work in it. According to Girls Who Code, 90% of Summer Immersion Program participants plan to major or minor in computer science or a closely related field.

Each week of the program covers projects that relate to computer science, and the girls will be able to hear guest speakers, work with female engineers, and participate in computer science workshops. It all leads up to one final project where the girls will build their own product and share it with the class.

Some alumni of the program are currently working in technology-related internships or are pursuing computer science degrees at top institutions like the University of Michigan and Princeton University, according to Girls Who Code.

“Too often girls don’t pursue computer science because they’ve never been exposed to it, or they don’t see the impact it can make on the world,” said Girls Who Code Founder and CEO Reshma Saujani. “By actually embedding classrooms in today’s leading companies that create products girls use every day, we show them, ‘Look, you can do this. You can code this. This is a world that is open to you, and once you learn this skill set, the possibilities are endless.’”

The Summer Immersion Program in the Chicago area will run through Aug. 19, and the program in Washington D.C. will run through Aug. 12.

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The lawsuit against the DOJ states that it must disclose if the “government has ever sought or obtained an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court requiring third parties (like Apple or Google) to provide technical assistance to carry out surveillance,” stated the announcement.

Ever since the FBI tried to force Apple to allow entrance into the iPhone of a terrorist in the San Bernardino attacks, the EFF has been concerned that the government might be threatening the security of citizens who use these devices every day.

If the government is forcing companies to break encryption, whether it is done in private or public, it risks the security of millions of people, said EFF senior staff attorney Nate Cardozo.

More information can be found here.

Intel to cut 11% of workforce
In what may be one of the biggest cutbacks for the maker of semiconductors, Intel has made it clear that it will eliminate 12,000 jobs, or 11% of its workforce.

Intel said that it is shifting its focus to areas like chips for datacenter machines and Internet-connected devices, according to Bloomberg Technology. Intel also showed a first-quarter revenue and second-quarter sales forecast that was short of analysts’ estimates.

Also, shipments of Intel PCs dropped to the lowest level in a decade in the first three months of 2016, and the job cuts mark “the most radical action yet” for the company reports Bloomberg.

The layoff will be the biggest since it reduced its staff between 2005 and 2009.

Recipients of scholarship for women in IT
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has collaborated with Applied Computer Security Associates (ACSA) and the Computing Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W). It was announced that 16 new recipients and eight continuing recipients will be awarded the 2016 Scholarship for Women Studying Information Security (SWSIS).

Funded by HPE, the scholarship program has supported 46 female college students who are looking to join the IT security industry. The scholarship supports women interested in building a career in IT security through funding and hands-on internship opportunities, according to an announcement.

To make sure women are represented in this workforce, HPE committed a US$250,000 four-year grant to the SWSIS scholarship program, which was started in 2014. In 2016, HPE, ACSA and CRA-W are funding 24 scholarship for undergraduates and master’s’ degree candidates from colleges and universities in the United States.

Google.com might be dangerous
Google’s Safe Browsing tool has labeled “google.com” as “partially dangerous.” The Safe Browsing tool scans billions of URLs per day looking for unsafe websites, and recently, Google’s search engine came up during the search displaying some potentially scary problems, reported the Washington Post.

This doesn’t mean that google.com itself is dangerous, but it does suggest that some individuals have used Google services to host something dangerous, which is why the tool is flagging the whole domain as risky, reported the Post.

Other popular sites also came up in the search for being a dangerous site. “Tumblr.com” and even “Github.com” came up in the search. Safe Browsing doesn’t monitor in real time, so it’s possible that the red flags might already have been fixed.

VersionOne introduces ALM Connect
The agile life-cycle management company VersionOne, announced ALM Connect, which enhances visibility and traceability while also connecting the VersionOne Enterprise Agile Platform to popular application life-cycle management (ALM) systems.

ALM Connect also gives organizations a way to manage ALM integrations from one Web-based interface. As ALM Connect integrates VersionOne with ALM systems, it provides visibility and coordination across development environments. ALM Connect also provides flexibility, with Web-based administration to provide seamless bidirectional or unidirectional integrations. This product can also perform field-level mapping, configure custom rules, and automate conflict resolution.

ALM Connect is also powered by OpsHub, a provider of ALM integration and migration solutions.

“By leveraging OpsHub technology, VersionOne is enabling its customers to easily synchronize their tools in real time across a heterogeneous ALM environment,” said Sandeep Jain, President and CEO of OpsHub.

More information about ALM Connect is available here.

The post EFF files lawsuit against DOJ, Intel to cut 11% of workforce, and Google.com might be dangerous—SD Times news digest: April 20, 2016 appeared first on SD Times.

Far too often, you have to work in a toxic culture. Whether in person or online, newbies get hazed and harassed. Men are verbally abused, certainly, in many software engineering organizations — there’s no room in many techie hangouts for wimps. However, women are almost always abused worse, and while men can learn to fight back, women are harassed in ways that are truly sickening.

Men are insulted and called names. Women receive death threats.

I’ve written about the challenges facing women in technology many times over the past decades; one recent column was “Fight back against the ugly ‘brogrammer’ trend,” written in May 2012. Yet I am continually astonished (in a bad way) by how terribly women are treated.

A recent example is what’s being called GamerGate, where a number of prominent women gamers – including some game developers—have been attacked online. Several women have reported receiving very explicit threats, which have included disclosures of their home addresses. At least two women, game developer Zoe Quinn and media critic Anita Sarkeesian, have apparently fled their homes.

For background on this appalling situation, see Nick Wingfield’s story in the New York Times, “Feminist Critics of Video Games Facing Threats in ‘GamerGate’ Campaign.”

What can we do? Other than say, “This isn’t right,” it’s hard to be sure. I don’t know if anyone I know is involved in these sorts of threats. I am unsure if any readers here are involved in creating this culture of misogyny and fear. But I do know that in the broad world, anti-bullying, anti-hazing and anti-harassment programs apparently don’t work, or certainly don’t work for long.

Indeed, GamerGate has become a distraction – where the discussion of GamerGate itself (which thrives on Twitter on with the hashtag #GamerGate) has seemingly overridden the bigger discussion about how women engineers, or women in the technology industry, are treated.

Christopher Grant, editor-in-chief of the gaming news/reviews site Polygon, has written a strong article about GamerGate, in which he writes,

Video games are capital “C” Culture now. There won’t be less attention, only more. There won’t be less scrutiny. There certainly won’t be less diversity, in the fiction of games themselves or in the demographics of their players. What we’re in control of is how we respond to that expansion, as journalists, as developers, as consumers. Step one has to be a complete rejection of the tools of harassment and fear — we can’t even begin to talk about the interesting stuff while people are literally scared for their lives. There can be no dialogue with a leaderless organization that both condemns and condones this behavior, depending on who’s using the hashtag.

GamerGate is evil. Perhaps harassment of women in the gaming industry is worse than in other technical fields. However, we should know, men and women alike, that despite the good work of groups like Women in Technology International and the Anita Borg Institute, the tech world is frequently hostile to women and tries to drive them out of the industry.

To ignore it is be part of the problem. Alas, I wish I knew what to do.

How can we stop the harassment of women in technology? Write me at alan@camdenassociates.com.

The post Zeichick’s Take: Despairing of the “brogrammer” world, thanks to GamerGate appeared first on SD Times.

In fact, only traditional engineering jobs showed a higher rate of pay equality than math and computer science disciplines. This could be seen as at least a small win for female developers in a world that seems to increasingly yield ugly and publicly blogged/Twittered incidents of sexism.

(Related: Where are the women in software?)

So while misogyny is still an industry problem, there’s no doubt that things have definitely gotten better for women in technology over the last 10 years. Or even the last four.

Evonne Heyning, cofounder of EDDEFY, said that she’s noticed a change in recent years, even if it’s not a complete shift across the board. She referred to “the rising tide of women, not just in engineering and coding, but across technology, such as in wearables. When I was growing up, I didn’t have women to look up to or talk to in technology. I never met female programmers until I went to college, but I started programming when I was six. We’re not seeing the full tide rise now, but it’s changing. When I go to hackathons, it’s definitely different than it was four years ago. In general, hackathons can be very cliqueish, but I see more women now.”

Heyning and EDDEFY’s four other female cofounders are building an education aggregation and presentation system, and have built their company as a flat management structure with no single leader. She said she and her cofounders have hired male developers, as well.

While Heyning has noticed a change in recent years, Brenda Romero has an even longer perspective. She’s been in the software industry since she worked on the game Wizardry in 1981.

“I can only speak to the game industry,” said Romero, “but I do feel [online awareness] movements like #1reasonwhy and #1reasontobe, as well as the visibility conferences like Game Developers Conference, provide, not to just women but minorities in general, help to make others feel comfortable speaking out and not comfortable remaining silent, even if they are not the victims of discrimination.”

Romero referred to a popular set of Twitter campaigns for women in the videogame industry. The #1reasonwhy tweets (as in the one reason why there aren’t more women making games) highlighted both the perks and hazards of being a woman in the video game industry. That campaign resulted in thousands of tweets covering subjects ranging from sexist managers to the benefits of having a little-used women’s room due to the dearth of women in game companies.

Romero said that she feels her industry has improved a great deal in how it handles sexism and racism, but now she’s worried about  a subtler form of racism. She said she’s more concerned about the digital divide creating a rift between technology haves and have nots, particularly in immigrant communities.

Romero’s husband, John Romero, is the famous game designer behind Doom. He’s also a Mexican American, and as a result, he has seen the divide that exists between the students of well-to-do folks and the children of migrant workers.

“I feel like there’s a lot of work to be done,” said Brenda Romero. “There are a lot of people who are not in the games industry who would love to be in the industry, and if they don’t have access to the technology early on, they’ve already lost. It’s not just a question of making this a good industry. We need to make it a good industry, but we need to show people the path to get in here who might otherwise not have chance.”

The post Software development slowly loses its boys club appeared first on SD Times.

If you are a woman in the technology profession, you know what I mean. If you aren’t, this may seem to be a non-issue: “All women need to do is try harder,” perhaps, or “Women need to relax and get over themselves.” Nope. If you’re a guy, talk to women techies and you’ll swiftly learn that their career path looks very different. And different is not better.

The more women we have in technology, the better for everyone: for the workforce, for the company’s bottom line, and for the customers. Everyone wins.

I have recently started working with an organization called WITI—Women in Technology International—that provides resources both for women in technical professions and for companies that see the incredible value in building and supporting a diversified workforce and management team. I encourage you to see what WITI, and related groups like the Anita Borg Institute, Million Women Mentors and Girls in Tech, have to offer.

Not sure about the problem? Not sure about the solution? Here are some stories about women in technology that you should read. Some about the professional challenges, and others about the incredible abuse that women receive all the time on the Internet, at some conferences, on Twitter, and even in open-source project forums. I’m not talking about challenges based on their ideas, their skills or their expertise, but rather hostility based purely on their gender. As a guy, I find these stories unbelievable and incredibly depressing. Let’s do something about it!

Pacific Standard: “Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet,” by Amanda Hess

Network Computing: “Women in IT: Suffer Silently?” by Michele Chubirka

Los Angeles Times: “Sexism a problem in Silicon Valley, critics say,” by Jessica Guynn

The New York Times: “An Uptick in the Hiring of Women for Tech Jobs,” by Claire Cain Miller

The New York Times: “Shopping for a Girl? Consider Science and Engineering Toys,” by Claire Cain Miller

BuzzFeed: “A Woman Walks Into a Tech Conference,” by Courtney Stanton

Internet Evolution: “Women in Tech: The Long, Slow Climb,” by Laura Sanders

The Atlantic: “We Need More Women in Tech: The Data Prove It,” by Derek Khanna

Network World: “Dreadfully Few Women are Open Source Developers,” by Amy Vernon

Fast Company: “The Loneliness of the Female Coder,” by Ciara Byrne

SlideShare: “How does biology explain the low numbers of women in computer science?” by Terri Oda

Smarterware: “Designers, Women, and Hostility in Open Source,” by Gina Trapani

Techworld: “Breaking down the gender divide in open source and open culture,” by Rohan Pearce

And my favorite, although it’s slightly off-topic:

Ars Technica: “How not to design a woman’s product,” by Casey Johnston

Are you a woman in a technology field? I’d love to hear your story—both the good and the not so good. Write me at alan@camdenassociates.com.

Alan Zeichick, founding editor of SD Times, is principal analyst of Camden Associates.

The post Zeichick’s Take: You won’t believe what they are saying about tech women appeared first on SD Times.

While this may seem encouraging, not everyone is convinced that there are actually more women technologists in the industry than ever before. Tracy Chou, a software engineer at Pinterest, wants to see the numbers that underlie this claim.

“The actual numbers I’ve seen and experienced in industry are far lower than anybody is willing to admit,” Chou wrote in a post on Medium, an online forum. “This means nobody is having honest conversations about the issue.”

(More on the need for women in technology: Doubling the talent pool)

She continued to cite that when CNN investigated top U.S. tech companies in 2011 to 2013, all that they were able to find was that the industry was unwilling to release any workforce diversity data.

So, Chou is setting out to find the numbers herself. For the past month she has been collecting data on how many women are writing or architecting software full-time through her GitHub project. Currently, she has reported data for 107 companies, and based on her numbers, only 438 out of 3,594 engineers from those companies are female, a whopping 12%.

“We’ve all set up our booths at the Grace Hopper career fair and we’re all trying to recruit the same talented young women, but really,  there’s a bigger goal: to remove gender as the hidden (or sometimes not-so-hidden) discriminant in the tech industry,” she wrote.

Chou’s data includes numbers from well-known companies such as Mozilla with 9% of female software engineers, GitHub with 6%, Pinterest with 13%, and Reddit with 14%.

Chou’s full collection of data can been viewed through a Google spreadsheet.

The post SD Times Blog: Where are the women in software? appeared first on SD Times.