{ "We don't need no education" => "Remove them bricks from the wall" }

Pink Floyd. We all know the tune. Some say the wall represents a departure from society. (It's badass).

It's actually a really great metaphor for what's happening with women in the tech world and rather putting bricks in walls and creating divides, the industry is doing the opposite - removing bricks and providing easy access for women to dive in to what has always been a male dominated field. This is really just the beginning in neutralizing the playing field of male to female employee/r ratios in the tech industry. It's a complex and gnarly road that will confront gender (and consequentally hopefully overcome) stereotypes, societal attitudes and education ("the how"). With ongoing innovations in technology (and no signs of this decellerating), simply put if women aren't technically literate they will get left behind.

Here's a few hard and fast realities:

• Gender disparity is a dire issue for all tech companies.
• While 57 percent of occupations in the workforce are held by women, in computing occupations that figure is only 25 percent.
• Of chief information officer jobs (CIOs) at Fortune 250 companies, 20 percent were held by a woman in 2012.
• 12% of computer-science degrees go to women, and in order for Silicon Valley to survive and thrive, it has to recruit what it can (i.e. males, male dominated industry.
• Research shows that women's choices impact up to 85 percent of purchasing decisions. By some analyses, they account for $4.3 trillion of total U.S. consumer spending of $5.9 trillion, making women the largest single economic force not just in the United States, but in the WORLD.
• Only 3 percent of tech startups are formed by women (Kauffman Foundation).
• The computing industry is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world. There are so many open jobs in the technology sector that many technology companies are unable to fill current openings. They worry about expanding in the future and being able to fill future needs. At current graduation rates, only 30 percent of the jobs created by 2020 can be filled with U.S. computing graduates. I'd like to find some stats on NZ, let me come back to this!
• So if there's already a shortage of developers in the world. How can innovation and growth be sustained if demand is high but supply is low?

Made with Code

At the time of writing this blog, Google was simultaneously launching a $50 million initiative called Made with Code which is aimed at recruiting more women to work as coders. The name Made with Code is a rewrite of the phrase Made with Love, where all craftsy, domestic, child-bearing associations are essentially extended to include the notion of 'code' and 'tech'.Made with Code is affirming that coding can be just as much a natural discipline to women as it is to men. This is an initiative about inclusion (and smart marketing).

Made with Code includes coding projects, stories from female technology role models and resources for parents. It's an online hub of stuff that's tailored for a young female audience to encourage them to get on board and build cool stuff, regardless of whether or not a career in tech is the long term goal. Raising awareness of technology is central to this initiative.

"Coding is a fundamental skill that's going to be a part of almost everything," according to Megan Smith, VP of Google X, and one of many fronting the programme. "So for kids to really at a minimum just be able to express themselves in code and make things and feel confident, that would be important - no matter what their career is." In my view? This programme is part of the start of something really big in terms of the industry and with the efforts of programmes such as this - and a little closer to home "Dev Academy Bootcamp" I think there will be a definate uptake (potentially explosion?) of female developers in the world. Recently last week I attended a local meetup here in Wellington organised by a group of female Ruby-istas called Rails Girls. Rails Girls are all over the world and are all for supporting women in tech (specifically in the Rails framework). With further initiatives in the vein of Google's Made with Love and Dev Academy's Bootcamp it'd be interesting to see whether a trend is mimicked with further meet up and other groups to foster a stronger sense of community in the tech world.