NCWIT Pacesetters Commit to Using Innovative Approaches to Add 3,500 New Technical Women to Computing Fields
(PRWEB) June 25, 2014 -- Today, at the White House Summit on Working Families, The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), a national non-profit focused on increasing women’s participation in computing, announced an aggressive commitment to add 3,500 new technical women to the U.S. talent pool by 2016 through the NCWIT Pacesetters program.
In this unique program, senior change leaders come together across academic, corporate, and entrepreneurial organizational boundaries to try innovative approaches to increase women’s participation in computing fields and careers. Pacesetters’ approaches vary widely. Some examples are: In Reach (working with women already on campus or in the workplace and motivating them to try technical careers), Creating Community and Visibility (partnering with community and organizational groups to recruit and advance technical women), Influencing the Influencers (communicating with influencers to have them encourage and advocate for women), and Tapping New Pools of Talent (seeking non-technical women and giving them a path to technology).
Improving the gender balance in computing can lead to a more diverse and competitive workforce while offering families more stability. Computing-related occupations are projected to be the fifth fastest growing segment of the professional workforce through 2022, and computing has the second highest median annual wage of all occupational categories. However, in 2013, although women held 57% of all professional occupations in the U.S. workforce, they only held 26% of computing occupations. (NCWIT Scorecard)
“We are pleased to see the White House bring the issue of the number of women in technical careers to the national stage,” said Lucy Sanders, CEO and Co-founder of NCWIT. “The Pacesetters program has enabled numerous organizations to grow their talent pools, and this commitment is an exciting next step toward the enhanced innovation that diverse teams create.”
“Inclusion and diversity are a driving force behind innovation at Apple. We are proud to work with NCWIT to encourage more women to pursue careers in technology, and we hope that many of them will join the ranks of incredibly talented women engineers at Apple,” said Denise Young-Smith, Apple's vice president of Worldwide Human Resources.
NCWIT Pacesetters is made possible by generous contributions from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Qualcomm. Find out more at http://www.ncwit.org/pacesetters.
ABOUT THE WHITE HOUSE SUMMIT ON WORKING FAMILIES
Hosted jointly by the Center for American Progress, the Department of Labor, and the White House Council on Women and Girls, the summit focuses on how to strengthen the nation’s workplaces to better support working families, boost businesses’ bottom lines, and ensure America’s global economic competitiveness in the coming decades. Find out more at http://workingfamiliessummit.org.
ABOUT NCWIT
The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) is a non-profit community of more than 500 universities, companies, non-profits, and government organizations nationwide working to increase women’s participation in computing and technology. NCWIT convenes change leaders and equips them with resources for taking action in recruiting, retaining, and advancing women from K–12 and higher education through industry and entrepreneurial careers. Find out more at http://www.ncwit.org.
NCWIT receives significant financial support from Strategic Partners NSF, Microsoft, Bank of America, Google, and Intel, as well as from Investment Partners Avaya, Pfizer, Merck, Turner Broadcasting Systems, Inc., AT&T, Bloomberg, and Hewlett-Packard. View all of NCWIT’s supporters at http://www.ncwit.org/about/supporters.
Twitter: @ncwit
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ncwit
LinkedIn: http://www.ncwit.org/LinkedIn
###
Adriane Bradberry, NCWIT, http://www.ncwit.org, +1 (303) 492-5213, [email protected]
Share this article