{"id":18127,"date":"2020-10-08T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.engineernewsnetwork.com\/blog\/?p=18127"},"modified":"2020-10-07T12:47:26","modified_gmt":"2020-10-07T11:47:26","slug":"online-festival-tackles-gender-imbalance-in-tech-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.engineernewsnetwork.com\/blog\/online-festival-tackles-gender-imbalance-in-tech-sector\/","title":{"rendered":"Online festival tackles gender imbalance in tech sector"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A week-long celebration of the life and achievements of a pioneering woman computing scientist is aiming to encourage more female participation in the tech sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inaugural Ada Scotland Festival<\/a><\/strong>, which launches online on Tuesday 13th October, is named after Ada Lovelace, the 19th-Century mathematician who is widely regarded as one of the first computer programmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ada Scotland team are setting out to foster primary and secondary-school age girls\u2019 interest in areas of the tech sector including video game design, cyber security, digital forensics and software development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The festival\u2019s organisers, led by researchers from the University of Glasgow in partnership with Edinburgh Napier University and dressCode, were moved to act by the stark gender imbalance in Scotland\u2019s digital technologies sector, which they believe is holding back the country from achieving its full economic and creative potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fewer than one in five jobs in the sector are held by women. That gender gap is also reflected in secondary education, where the proportion of girls choosing to study computing science in high school has fallen steadily from 35% in 1995 to just 20% in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The online festival will feature a series of online workshops, videos, activities and competitions put together by academics, teachers, the Scottish Government, and private sector organisations. While many are aimed at school-age girls, there will also be content aimed to teachers and parents to help them encourage their pupils and children\u2019s early interests in computing science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Matthew Barr, of the University of Glasgow\u2019s Centre for Computing Science Education, is one of the festival\u2019s founders. He said: \u201cIt\u2019s immensely disappointing that nearly 170 years after Ada Lovelace\u2019s death, women are still vastly under-represented in the tech sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy own young daughter was recently told by a classmate in her primary school that a video game she enjoys was solely for boys. That suggests to me that attitudes aren\u2019t changing nearly as quickly as we&rsquo;d hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe tech world is in dire need of girls\u2019 and young women\u2019s drive and enthusiasm and we want to show them how they can be supported to turn their talents into a fulfilling, fun career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping that the Ada Scotland Festival will provide a real boost to get them over any early hurdles. We\u2019ve been hugely encouraged by how many partners have offered their support, and we hope that this first year of the festival will put us on the way to making it a one-stop shop to address gender imbalance in the sector.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the events on offer from the Ada Scotland Festival website will be:<\/p>\n\n\n\n