Cisco Joins Push to Increase Women in IT

San Jose, Calif.-based electronic network provider Cisco Systems is troubled by the 19 percent decline of women in the information technology field that the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) has noted over the last eight years. Last week, the company announced that it had joined forces with the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) to combat the problem.

With ITAA now reporting that women represent barely one-quarter of IT workers, Cisco and Boulder, Colo.-based NCWIT are hoping the creation of a digital library, available at www.ncwit.org will help. Designed to give students, parents and teachers information about careers in high-tech fields, the site also includes tips on enhancing performance in math, computing and technology, along with sample lesson plans for teaching computing to girls. Details about local clubs, programs and summer camps for girls in technology are also available.

The Web site the company has launched with NCWIT is new, but it ties into Cisco's ongoing Women in Technology program. Part of the company's Networking Academy, the program reaches out to young women six to 10 times a year with Girls in Technology Summits in which IT workers from companies such as fashion and publishing houses give presentations about their work. The goal, says Gene Longo, senior manager for the U.S. and Canada for the Networking Academy, is to show young women that having IT skills opens up opportunities in nearly any field they may be interested in. Summits also include presentations to the girls on how technology can be used to solve problems in their communities.

“We try to get the girls more engaged with the thought of technology helping to solve problems, whether they're health or socials issues,” Longo says. This solution-oriented approach seems to work especially well with female students, he points out. “We find women versus men tend to get more connected to technology when it actually has a benefit. We take real world problems Cisco has encountered around the globe, and then we bring those problems to the young women and see how they would solve them with technology.”

The company still has its work cut out for it. Longo notes that despite Cisco's specialized program offering, women account for fewer than 20% of the students enrolled in its Networking Academy, a program for which Cisco has donated “well over” $300 million worth of IT curriculum, supporting materials and instructor training to nonprofit high schools and colleges in every state, and 150 countries.

Efforts to raise awareness among girls of IT as a career goal are just starting to make a dent. A study of 1,112 girls aged 11 to 18, released this fall by Tokyo-based electronics manufacturer Toshiba Corp, found that a fifth said they wanted more access to technology at school, BBC News reported last week. But, this enthusiasm, unfortunately, has not yet translated to the work place. The study also found that the proportion of IT workers who are female is down to 21%.

The paltry number of women in IT affects more than just traditional computer programming. According to a recent survey by San Francisco-based International Game Developers Association, which polled over 6,500 employees to establish the demographic makeup of the industry, just 12 percent of respondents were women.