Thursday, June 05, 2008

Women in Tech: Brain Drain Task Force

As a father of a teenage daughter, I'm glad to see that there are people focused on addressing this problem, but I'm disappointed to see how little progress has been made. It's particularly challenging when you consider all the initiatives that have been funded at the K-12 level and at colleges and universities can be undone with just one ignorant co-worker or supervisor. There's a great - but small - pool of fantastic female engineers and scientists that are tremendous role models for my daughter and others. Maybe what we need is better role models for our sons!
Front Lines : Female Brain Drain in Science: "Much Has Yet to Happen"
After hours on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Thursday, a group of mostly women gathered to drink wine and discuss new findings on the female brain drain in the fields of science, engineering and technology.

Among them were the members of the “brain drain task force,” a group of researchers and executives from Cisco, Microsoft and other big-name companies who were behind a study — “The Athena Factor: Reversing the Brain Drain in Science, Engineering, and Technology” — discussed in the June issue of the Harvard Business Review. The study, conducted by the Center for Work-Life Policy, found that 52% of women working in science and tech left their jobs as they neared age 40. That attrition rate, all agreed, was too high.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good Job! :)

Hans said...

Thanks for sharing!

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