Friday, June 26, 2015

Happy National Women in Engineering Day!

Today is dedicated to raising the profile and celebrating the achievements of women in engineering.

National Women in Engineering Day was created by the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) to celebrate its 95th anniversary. Today, WES wants to focus attention on the great opportunities for women in engineering, at a time when it has never been more important to address the engineering skills shortage. By encouraging girls into engineering careers we will not only be increasing diversity and inclusion – a business imperative – but enabling us to fill the substantial future job opportunities that have been predicted in this sector.


The idea behind National Women in Engineering Day is to encourage all groups (Governmental, educational, corporate, Professional Engineering Institutions, individuals and other organizations) to organize their own events in support of the day, and link them together for maximum impact through the use of the NWED logo, corresponding website, and supporting resources.

To celebrate this day, head over to The Women in STEM Idea Exchange Summit website and register for our upcoming summit this fall in Boston. The Summit brings together companies struggling to fill their STEM job pipelines with female college students pursuing STEM degrees. The summits are designed to facilitate closing the gap between corporate needs for a STEM-enabled workforce and student questions about job prospects that align their passion with the needs of corporate America.

Last year, attendees, both students and corporations alike, shared what they have experienced and learned, gained insight into best practices for recruitment and retention, engaged with the next generation of STEM women and worked together to drive change. We look forward to meeting you at the next summit to inspire, engage, discuss and change the future of the STEM workforce! Register here: http://bit.ly/1SPVKh4

Cheers,
The Women in Stem Exchange Idea Summit Team
@WISExchange

#WISExchange15

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

UK Struggles with Underrepresentation of Women in STEM Professions

For a while now it has been commonly known that there is a severe underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering and math. In 2014 it was found that in the UK there were around 4.71 million males working in STEM fields and only 0.69 million women in the same occupation. The vast difference once again shows the proof that the STEM industries are a boys club.

The issue was again brought to light after Nobel prize-winning biochemist Tim Hunt resigned from his position at University College London after making comments about the ‘trouble with girls’ in laboratories. Hunt whilst at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Seoul, South Korea, commented “Let me tell you about my trouble with girls…Three things happen when they are in the lab…You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when you criticize them, they cry."

This comment, which led to Hunt resigning, whilst causing much outrage, signaled again to many the issue that women are still underrepresented across almost all levels of science. In the UK, women make up just 12.8% of the STEM workforce. This is only up 0.2% from 2012 which hardly going to make a difference. The lack of females in STEM fields has caused great concern in the UK in recent years and it was identified that in order to generate higher numbers of scientists and engineers that the economy requires, then getting more females enrolled in a science course at university and in schools was the key.

It has been found that in the UK, women are under-represented at professorial levels in academic research careers in all STEM disciplines (typically 17 percent less). The proportion of boys is considerably higher too when it comes to undergraduate and graduate degrees in STEM subjects. There are found to be 12 percent more males in undergraduate and graduate degrees.

The comparison can be seen across the pond in America as well. The top computer programs have male dominated courses which has been found to cause confidence issues for the smaller numbers of females who take the course. The confidence issues are seen in the UK too; at A-Level girls were found to lack confidence in science and math even when their results were better than the boys.'

There have been movements in the USA to try and promote STEM fields to younger females in order to boost numbers at college level and this needs to be implemented in the UK and across the world. Increasing numbers of women in science professions will cause more to filter into the industry and start to take down the boys clubs that have moved from the colleges to the top of the industries. This in turn will create role models that younger female STEM enthusiasts can look at and give them the confidence to step into scientific careers.


About the Author: Harry Kempe, a marketing intern at IIR USA, who works on various aspects of the industry including social media, marketing analysis and media. He is a recent graduate of Newcastle University who previously worked for EMAP Ltd. and WGSN as a marketing assistant on events such as the World Architecture Festival, World Retail Congress and Global Fashion Awards. He can be reached at hkempe@IIRUSA.com

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Change Your Innovation Life with Susan Cain, Tom Kelley, Steve Blank & More at FEI

TED Phenom Susan Cain, Best Selling Author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts will radically change your point of view on the best ways to develop leaders, manage teams, make smart hires and stimulate innovation.

Learn how to think, grow and innovate like startups in the FEI Startup Lab. Or join lean startup guru STEVE BLANK as he leads 3M, Intuit and Goodyear in a panel on lean in large organizations.

May 18-20, 2015
Boston World Trade Center & Seaport

Download the brochure for full program details: http://bit.ly/1doIVux

Tom Kelley of IDEO empowers you to use creative experimentation to reduce the cost of failure and gain valuable learnings before the launch of your new idea.

As innovators, we are tasked with discovering the thing that isn't yet visible. Cirque du Soleil's creative director explores the "body-mind-soul" connection in innovation problem solving during an FEI Studio Session (additional studio sessions from NASA, LEGO Serious Play, Johnson & Johnson and W.L. Gore)


Turns out it has a hunger for innovation as well.

Discover the key to building a culture of innovation that delivers sustainable results with Chief Technology Officers from Shire, Analog Devices and Computer Science Corp.

Get behind the scenes at some of Boston's most innovative companies (Pfizer, HubSpot, Reebok, Optum Labs, MassChallenge, Shire, Fidelity Ventures) to see and hear first-hand how their physical environments fuel their innovation engines.

Imagine a process where all the most important issues could be raised and priorities could be set and action plans made. Eli Lilly leads a full day open space experience to collaborative "fix" the start/stall innovation frustration in your organization.

ChangeHeroes.com's Taylor Conroy launched a ground-breaking funding platform that raised over $1million to fund schools and libraries in 12 developing countries. FEIers will build a school together - rethinking how we calibrate success and define happiness.

...if you're not keeping pace. Singularity University's Salim Ismail explores a new breed of organizations scaling at a pace unimaginable just a few years ago, and how to compete.

And so do Steve Blank and Susan Cain. Pick the brains of the world's most brilliant thinkers in FEI UNCUT Q&A sessions. This is unprecedented "behind the curtain" access. 

Use code FEI15LI for $100 off the current rate: http://bit.ly/1doIVux

We hope to see in Boston next month!

Cheers,
The FEI 2015 Team
@fei_innovation
#FEI15
frontendofinnovationblog.iirusa.com


Wednesday, April 1, 2015

How Powerful Women are Changing the Face of Innovation Leadership

Women's History Month came to a close yesterday, but FEI: Front End of Innovation believes we should honor women driving innovation all year round.

In addition to three can't miss sessions:

2nd Annual Women in Innovation Panel
Kimberly Kleiman-Lee, Senior Executive Leadership Development, GE Crotonville
Denise L. Fletcher, Vice President & Chief Innovation Officer, Healthcare Payer & Pharma, Xerox Karen Freidt, Creativity & Innovation Design Program Manager, NASA Langley Research Center
Donna Sturgess, Formerly, Global Head of Innovation and VP Marketing, GSK

A Quiet Revolution: Changing How We Work, Lead & Innovate
Susan Cain, TED Phenom & Best-Selling Author, QUIET: The Power of Introverts

Shifting Culture & Social Norms through Media & Products
Miki Agrawal, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, THINX & SUPER SPROWTZ

FEI 2015 plays host to amazing roster of female innovation pioneers at our US and EMEA events we think YOU need to meet, including:

Michele R. Weslander Quaid, Chief Technology Officer (Federal), Innovation Evangelist, Google
Michele is Google's Chief Innovation Evangelist supporting the global user base, and has served as Chief Technology Officer for the Public Sector since joining Google in April 2011. Throughout her career, she has taken on the challenge of creating startups and transforming existing businesses in both industry and government. Through consistent success, Michele is recognized and sought after as a leader of change, innovation, and organizational transformation. "DC's Top 50 Women in Tech" ( Feds coop , 2014) "Power 100" list of influencers ( Washington Life , 2014) "The 7 Most Powerful Women to Watch" ( Entrepreneur Magazine , 2014)

Elke den Ouden, Author, Founder, Elke den Ouden BV
Dr. Elke den Ouden is appointed by the board as TU/e Fellow at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) per 1 april 2014 to further develop strategic collaborations of the university with public and private organizations

Erika Ilves, Founder & Idea Capitalist, road:infinity
Erika  co-wrote a book on the future of the human species and continues writing, speaking and spontaneously digressing on this topic. Her calling is space settlement and she splits time between two ventures that fuel the space frontier in two different ways - one literally, by putting refueling depots in orbit (Shackleton Energy) and another figuratively, by making space easier to invest in (Transplanetary).

Karin Schumacher, Global Product Portfolio Director, Food Preparation, Electrolux
Karin is the global product portfolio director of food preparation at Electrolux, where she's been for several years- as the director of the consumer innovation program and also global product portfolio.

Michelle Augustine, Technology & Innovation Champion, Gore Medical Products
Michelle Augustine is a career technology leader with W. L. Gore & Associates.  After earning her Bachelors of Science Degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware, and early career experiences in Pharmaceuticals, Michelle joined Gore in 1993 and worked on early front-end innovation and technology development to create the next generation of Gore-Tex™ laminates for footwear and garments.

Aline Wolff, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Stern School of Business, NYU
Aline Wolff is a Clinical Associate Professor of Management Communication at New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business. She teaches courses in innovative thinking for business, as well as business, management and organizational communication for the undergraduates, MBAs and for the Executive Education programs, including the Bankseta program for South African bankers and Communication Strategies: Developing Leadership Presence.

Donna Sturgess, President & Founding Partner, Buyology, formerly, Global Head of Innovation & VP Marketing, GlaxoSmithKline
Donna is a strategist and senior marketer with over 25 years of both US and global experience at GlaxoSmithKline where she led commercial businesses prior to her innovation role. At Buyology she is a visionary proponent of building clients' businesses through a deeper understanding of the non-conscious drivers of attention, engagement and persuasion to better understand customer choice and why people buy what they buy. She also holds the position of Executive in Residence at Carnegie Mellon University where led the strategic plan to create the Integrated Innovation Institute, a unique collaboration of the engineering, business and design schools.

Susan Cain, Best-Selling Author, QUIET: The Power of Introverts
Susan Cain is the co-founder of Quiet Revolution LLC and the author of the award-winning New York Times best seller QUIET: The Power of Introverts in A World That Can't Stop Talking, which has been translated into 36 languages, has appeared on many "Best of" lists, and was named the #1 best book of the year by Fast Company magazine, which also named Cain one of its "Most Creative People in Business". Cain's book was the subject of a TIME magazine cover story, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. Her record-smashing TED talk has been viewed over 10 million times, and was named by Bill Gates one of his all-time favorite talks.

Tracey A. Dodenhoff, Founding Director, Center for Research Innovation, Northeastern University
An entrepreneurial leader driven by value creation, Tracey specializes in product commercialization and new market initiatives. Tracey is the Founding Director of the Center for Research Innovation (CRI), an exciting new venture focusing on increasing commercialization activity from research initiatives, where she leads the translation of innovations into tangible commercial successes. She also provides leadership for the University's technology transfer practice.

Carin Watson, Managing Director, Corporate Innovation, SU Labs, Singularity University
Carin Watson oversees the Corporate Innovation Program at SU Labs, helping large enterprises establish an innovation outpost in Silicon Valley and leverage SU's unique global community. She has almost 20 years of marketing, product development and corporate innovation experience with Fortune 500 companies. She loves creating simple but delightful products and experiences, informed by a deep understanding of users.

Cristin Moran, Front End Manager, 3M
Dr. Cristin Moran is the Front End Innovation Manager for the 3M Health Care Business. In this role, she is responsible for leading transformational and disruptive programs, developing and teaching innovation science and methodology, and applying that to the seven divisions within the 3M Health Care Business.

Deborah Arcoleo, Director, Innovation Center of Excellence, The Hershey Company
Deb Arcoleo is Director of the Innovation Center of Excellence for The Hershey Company.  She is responsible for enabling innovation capabilities, unleashing creativity and ensuring a healthy portfolio of beyond product innovation across the enterprise.  She has held innovation positions with Campbell Soup Company, J&J Consumer Group of Companies and Pfizer Consumer Healthcare.  She also founded and ran her own organization effectiveness and change management consulting firm for 6 years, and spent 14 years in the management consulting profession, including four years at McKinsey & Company.

Denise L. Fletcher, Vice President & Chief Innovation Officer, Healthcare Payer & Pharma (HPP), Xerox Commercial Solutions
Denise Fletcher serves as chief innovation officer for Xerox Healthcare Payer and Pharma group. Fletcher is responsible for achieving annual group innovation revenue targets, fueling thought leadership strategies, engaging customers in innovation strategies, and driving innovation through a robust research and development pipeline. She has 6 patents pending in healthcare.

Diana Gabbard, Consumer Insights EOR FVC, BP
BP is a company rich in history and tradition but bringing change into any component of the business can be a challenge.  Diana Gabbard believes uncovering deep human truths helps to break some old habits in innovation and inspires new excitement in consumer program innovation. Consumer empathy can spark innovation and take you down paths that may not have been explored without the inspiration; Insight into how uncovering deep human truths about your consumer can be useful for strategic design and a launching point for future innovation.

Gillian Ferrabee, Director, Creative Lab, Cirque du Soleil Media
Gillian Ferrabee wrote and directed her first play at the age of 10. She has been fascinated with storytelling, and with the connection between creativity, technology and our senses for as long as she can remember. Her first professional career was as a contemporary dancer. Later she became an actor and writer for TV and film. In 2004 she joined Cirque du Soleil's casting team; for many years she travelled the world finding extraordinary talent and scouting new trends in performance and design. She was on the team that cast the Beatles LOVE show, as well as others in the company's repertoire. In 2012 she was named Director of the Creative Lab at the new company, Cirque Du Soleil Media. She now leads a team of creatives in developing projects destined for the International TV, film and new media markets.

Kara L. Sterner, Director of Innovation, Bumble Bee Foods
When a company accepts that its bread & butter category won't be that for much longer, the likely outcome is A) continue to ride the wave for as long as it goes, or B) jump off and catch a new wave. Bumble Bee Seafood's created their own option C) keep riding the current wave and send in a new rider for the next big one because innovation needs a place to start so it can learn and grow.  Bumble Bee's Director of Innovation used insights as ammunition to align stakeholders and focus the business in 3 deep fishing grounds, adopted a process that allowed for quick data driven decision making to meet short/mid/long term goals and harnessed the passion of people through idea generation all leveraging lean resources but yielding meaty outcomes.  Jumpstarting innovation is exhausting, but with a little bit of focus and a lot of drive, the exhilaration from the journey wins every time.

Karen Freidt, Creativity & Innovation Design Program Manager, GROW Mentoring Program Manager, NASA Langley Research Center
With a BFA in graphic design and experience in advertising, Karen brings a creative perspective to her work leading programs at NASA Langley Research Center. She specializes in moving minds and ideas forward while piloting new ways of working within government in support of the NASA vision. Karen is driven to challenge assumptions, build better systems and help paint visionary options in the minds of those around her.

Kimberly Kleiman-Lee, Lead, Senior Executive Leadership Development, GE Crotonville
Kimberly Kleiman-Lee heads the Executive Learning Team for GE Crotonville, focusing on the learning and development needs of the company's senior-most leaders.  Kimberly has been with GE for 15 years; 12 of those years at GE Healthcare. Most recently, she served as Senior Faculty Lead for the GE Officers. 

Julia Austin, Former VP of Innovation, VMWare, Advisor, AustinFish, Co-Founder & CTO, Stealth Start-Up
Julia is a Principal at Austinfish, LLC and works with technology entrepreneurs to help them start and scale great companies. She is a board member, investor and advisor to several startups and is often called upon as a leadership coach with a focus on the Engineering process, staffing and operations.

Rudina Seseri, Partner, Fairhaven Capital, Entrepreneur in Residence, Harvard Business School
Rudina joined Fairhaven Capital at its inception in 2007. She has led Fairhaven's investments in CrowdTwist, Jibo, SocialFlow, and Statisfy. She also serves as an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at the Harvard Business School.

Ivy Eisenberg, Founder, Our IdeaWorks
Ivy Eisenberg is the founder and CEO of Our IdeaWorks, LLC, an innovation consultancy that focuses on innovation workshops and deep customer research.  Since the early 1980s, Ivy has been a passionate advocate for connecting creators/business-builders and users/customers. Her early work on technical communications and user interfaces (before there was a discipline of UI/UX) focused on collaborative innovation, employing techniques that included ethnographic research, "all-fidelity" prototyping, and iterative design and development. She raised eyebrows when she pulled programmers out of their cubicles at a large commercial bank and took them on a "field trip" to observe the data entry clerks who were keeping manual ledger books and would soon be using the new processing system.

Debra France, Leadership Development, W.L. Gore
Since it was founded in 1958, the company has operated in a non-hierarchical manner to optimize its ability to innovate.  Debra helps teams articulate Gore's organic processes for developing leaders and for fostering innovation, so this wisdom can be embedded into the design of learning experiences and organizational processes.

Lilliane Geels, Business Process Manager, Change Management Team, European Patent Office

Catherine Eder, Director, Change Management & Internal Communications - Patent Administration, European Patent Office

Celine Farcet, European Open Research Manager, L'Oreal Research & Innovation

Join these amazing women in Boston this May!

Use code FEI15BL for $100 off the current rate. Register today: http://bit.ly/1F3c4BV

All the best,
The FEI Team
@fei_innovation
#FEI15


Monday, March 2, 2015

Is the STEM Pipeline Really Leaking?

It has been common knowledge for a while that women are under represented in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. There has been a lot of scrutiny as to why this is and a commonly referred to reason is the ‘leaky pipeline’ theory. This is the idea that there are higher rates of women leaving the STEM pipeline after entering college than men. The theory suggests that factors such as a lack of interest and discrimination make it more likely for women to leave academic STEM subjects. So as a result women who earn bachelor’s degrees in these subjects are less likely to succeed in earning a doctorate.

However, recent studies carried out by researchers David Miller and Jonathan Wai have shown that from an analysis of 30 year trends in STEM fields that women are no less likely than men to earn advanced degrees in STEM fields. The gender gap in persistence rates in the 1970s showed that men were almost twice as likely to earn a relevant doctorate. Yet, by the 1990s the gap had completely closed.

Miller however goes on to say that women and men are still not equally represented in STEM academia with men outnumbering women by roughly 3 to 1. These differences though are not due to gender bias in the pipeline. The study found that 25 percent of bachelor’s degree recipients in STEM are female and the percentage of doctorate recipients is 27 percent.

Miller of Northwestern believes that instead of trying to plug these leaks, there should be an emphasis on getting more students, both male and female, interested before the bachelor degree level. Curt Rice of the University of Tromsø claims that it could be that there are now in fact more men leaving the pipeline which is the cause of the lack of gap. He believes that it could be that the leaks in the pipeline are getting even bigger. This could again point to the need to get more people interested in STEM fields at lower ages. This would mean a higher number into the pipeline and a potential to increase numbers moving through to doctorate level and further.

The question that sprang to my mind when seeing the study results was even though percentages of women closing the gender gap at colleges is better than it was 30 years ago, what is the gap like at the top STEM institutions? In a previous post I focused on whether the top institutions were boys clubs and this could be the case for why there still is an under representation of women in top STEM companies. The top universities were found to have 14 percent female undergraduate degrees awarded in computer science. It may be harder for women to succeed at the top institutions for STEM fields and thus progress into top companies. So the STEM degrees and doctorates from potentially less prestigious institutions may not be enough to get into the best companies. Therefore the degrees could be taken into non-STEM fields such as health or politics where there is more chance to progress and succeed.


About the Author: Harry Kempe, a marketing intern at IIR USA, who works on various aspects of the industry including social media, marketing analysis and media. He is a recent graduate of Newcastle University who previously worked for EMAP Ltd. and WGSN as a marketing assistant on events such as the World Architecture Festival, World Retail Congress and Global Fashion Awards. He can be reached at hkempe@IIRUSA.com.

Monday, January 19, 2015

Statistics Show Computer Science Really is a Boys' Club

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the lack of women in STEM professions and in particular computer sciences. Google, after a lot of public media pressure, released a blog post with a breakdown of the company’s workforce. The results regarding the gender gap was unsurprising in that the female percentage of the workforce was significantly lower than the male.

In fact, it was found that out of Google’s 46,170 employees only 30 percent of them are female, only 21 percent of leadership positions in Google are held by women. The lowest percentage, predictably, was found in the tech sector where females hold only 17 percent of the jobs.

The problem is not just at Google as the table below shows Google and nine other large technology companies who released data after Google, showing the percentages of females working their companies.

Company
% of female employees
% of female employees in tech jobs
% of female employees in non-tech jobs
% of females in leadership positions
Google
30%
17%
48%
21%
Apple
30%
20%
35%
28%
Facebook
31%
15%
47%
23%
Twitter
30%
10%
50%
21%
Yahoo
37%
15%
52%
23%
LinkedIn
39%
17%
47%
25%
Pandora
49.2%
18%
57.8%
14%
Pinterest
40%
20%
66%
19%
eBay
42%
24%
49%
28%
HP
32.5%
18.4%
48.7%
25.6%

All data given in 2014 apart from HP which is from 2013.

Only three out of 10 of the world’s leading technology firms scrape 20 percent with eBay the highest on 24 percent. It shows that in other aspects of the company, percentages of people in non-tech fields are pretty equal, so why is there such a dramatic difference in tech?

One issue is something again that can be seen from the table; female leader numbers in the above companies are very low, which provides a lack of role models for aspiring female tech professionals. It is very difficult for women to get into managerial positions as the top firms are dominated by what the New York Times’ Claire Cain Miller describes as ‘a fraternity of chummy men.’ She states that there is a ‘sexist culture’ amongst companies in Silicon Valley. The females that work there are isolated and in some cases have been found to be harassed. A group of women working at major tech firms came out and stated that they were ‘harassed on mailing lists and called ‘whore/c—t’’ and received ‘creepy e-mails’ that haven’t been dealt with by higher powers. The ‘fraternity of chummy men’ may not be too far off the mark as many of the top firms will hire from only top schools where again, STEM courses such as computer science will be dominated by male students and teachers (14 percent of US physics professors are female); again a potentially off-putting statistic for young female scientists. 

Creating a more female inclusive tech world will not happen overnight; however steps are slowly being made. For example, many of the companies mentioned have set up initiatives and groups for their minority employees such as the Pandora Women in Business scheme. In fact, Columbia University has a group that brings together female computer science students to help expand their opportunities and provide direction. Initiatives like this will encourage more females to study computer science and by having more equal college gender ratios then the stigma of computer science being a boys club may start to fade out. I believe because these areas of study are dominated by men, when they then progress into companies also dominated by males and it becomes a culture. If computer science is seen as a unisex area of study from a younger age then it will eventually filter into the workplace too. 


About the Author: Harry Kempe, a marketing intern at IIR USA, who works on various aspects of the industry including social media, marketing analysis and media. He is a recent graduate of Newcastle University who previously worked for EMAP Ltd. and WGSN as a marketing assistant on events such as the World Architecture Festival, World Retail Congress and Global Fashion Awards. He can be reached at hkempe@IIRUSA.com.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Is Confidence the Reason Women are the Minority in STEM Fields?

A recent study has found that women often fail to do as well in a corporate environment due to a lack of confidence in their own abilities. This ties in closely with the fact that there is a distinct gender gap in STEM fields as it has been found that women make up only 24 percent of STEM professions.

From this, a study looked into how male and female college students view their own abilities. There was found to be a gender gap in terms of confidence levels in the STEM fields and in particular computer science. This study, carried out by Piazza, created a social learning platform where students and teachers could ask questions (anonymously if they wanted) and answered by fellow students. Piazza analyzed two million questions by almost one million students from US and Canadian schools over four semesters. The confidence gap was defined as the percentage difference between the average number of questions answered by female and male students. The gap for computer sciences showed women answered 37 percent less than men and for the rest of the STEM subject’s women were 18 percent fewer.

The difference in levels was found to be biggest at the top computer science programs – females at Carnegie Mellon University answered 62 percent less than males whilst at Cornell, Stanford and Harvard there were 60 percent, 49 percent and 39 percent differences again in favor of the males. The gaps at slightly smaller institutions were a lot smaller and in the cases of Boston University and Caltech the females had higher percentages with three percent higher at Boston and 22 percent higher at Caltech.


This leads me to believe that the reason behind the disparity in confidence levels comes from the fact that STEM fields and in particular computer science are still boys clubs and this stems from college level. The top level courses themselves are still male dominated and by teachers as well as students. The top universities were found to have 14 percent female undergraduate degrees awarded in computer science.

The disparity means females are less likely to be able to find friends to help with work and mentoring as the males tend to group together. Male teachers as well are more likely to bond with male students as they will have also worked or studied in a male dominated environment. Studies have also shown that males are also more likely to receive more positive classroom attention from teachers than females.  It is similar in other courses such as business where it is found at Harvard Business School between 2006 and 2007 a third of the junior female faculty left. Trends like this show that females have less female mentoring so often feel excluded and intimidated. Another study shows that at Carnegie 53 percent of male college freshmen rated themselves as highly prepared for their computer science exams whilst zero percent of females said the same. However at the end of the year 86 percent of the females interviewed received A or B grades which shows the extreme difference in confidence levels despite actually having no need to be worried.  

From this evidence it is not surprising that females feel less confident to firstly go into these professions or courses where they are the minority and secondly when there, they are less likely to want to speak up. If there is less of a social stigma surrounding these STEM fields being for men then maybe there would be a positive change in more women taking up STEM professions and succeeding. 


About the Author: Harry Kempe, a marketing intern at IIR USA, who works on various aspects of the industry including social media, marketing analysis and media. He is a recent graduate of Newcastle University who previously worked for EMAP Ltd. and WGSN as a marketing assistant on events such as the World Architecture Festival, World Retail Congress and Global Fashion Awards. He can be reached at hkempe@IIRUSA.com.