TITLE: Where Influential Women in Computing Come From
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: November 19, 2008  4:36 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
A recent article at Fast Company highlights some
of the
<A HREF="http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/2008/11/influential-women-web.html">
   Most Influential Women in Web 2.0</A>.
This list "wasn't chosen by star power, nor by
career altitude" but for the biggest innovations
in the nebulous sphere of Web 2.0.  This list is
also not a random sample, which makes drawing
conclusions from it dicey.  Yet I could not help
noticing how few of them have CS background:
<UL>
<LI> Sinha: cognitive neuroscience  </LI>
<LI> Kaplan: economics, government, philosophy,
     and history  </LI>
<LI> Page/Des Jardins/Stone: theatre/English
     lit/political science  </LI>
<LI> Huffington: economics  </LI>
<LI> Banister: HS drop-out  </LI>
<LI> Bianchini: political science, then MBA  </LI>
<LI> Fake: English  </LI>
<LI> Trott: English  </LI>
<LI> Hamlin: political economy and human rights  </LI>
<LI> Mayer: systems science (after starting in
     biology and chemistry), then M.S. in CS   </LI>
<LI> Culver: computer science (after starting
     in art)  </LI>
</UL>

Perhaps this is a non-representative sample of
women in computing or Web 2.0.  Or perhaps the
range of backgrounds we see here, especially its
tilt toward the humanities, says more about the
social and interactive nature of Web 2.0 than
about computer science.  Perhaps it says something
about women and what they want out of their
academic majors.

Somehow, though, I think this list is a great
example of why we need to broaden the public's
conception of computing, in hopes that more might
choose to major in CS.  I also think it is also
a great example of why we as a discipline need
to engage students all across the campus.  We
need to expose more (all?) students to expose
them to the power of the ideas of computing and
give them some of the skills they will need to
apply it to whatever they decide to do.

I'm glad these innovators and women found computing
along the way to turning their ideas into reality,
but I'd like for us to eliminate some of the
barriers that we erect between computer science
and tomorrow's innovators.
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