New York City wants to be the next American tech powerhouse, and to get there it is tripling its investment in programs for computer science students. In the middle of the East River, on Roosevelt Island, one of the keys to the city\u2019s tech future is being built: Cornell Tech. When it\u2019s complete, it will house 2,000 graduate students and hundreds of faculty and staff as well as an ecosystem of companies, researchers and entrepreneurs. Cornell Tech has also partnered with the City University of New York (CUNY) and other tech leaders to launch Women in Technology and Entrepreneurship in New York (WiTNY) to prepare young women for careers in technology and help fill the gender gap in America\u2019s tech fields. Why not women? Thirty-five years ago, a third of computer science degrees went to women, according to Accenture, a leader in technology services. Now that number is 20 percent. Brittany Greve, a first year STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) student at Hunter College in New York City, says \u201cthe expectation of young women when they are growing up isn\u2019t necessarily to do anything in STEM, no one pushes them in that direction.\u201d Greve is one of a handful of women at Hunter in a curriculum that is male-dominated. She says that\u2019s changing slowly. \u201cWe know that this isn\u2019t going to happen in a year or two years,\u201d she said, \u201cit will probably take a decade to make the change. We have to keep pushing back when people say that women aren\u2019t supposed to be in STEM.\u201d Accenture supports women in tech in New York and across the United States by making 40 percent of its new hires women. Lynn McMahon, Accenture\u2019s managing director for the New York metro area, talked about her company\u2019s approach to getting more women interested in technology. \u201cOne of the things our company is trying to understand is what works at the college level, pre-college level, high school, and even as far back as junior high,\u201d she said. \u201cWe want to help women and girls envision that this is the place they want to be.\u201d Other industry partners, such as Kickstarter, Viacom, Genome, LearnVest, Bloomberg and Google, are committed to expanded training and job opportunities for both women and men. Plentiful jobs The U.S. Department of Labor estimates there will be 1.1 million computing-related job openings in the U.S. by 2024. The National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) believes only about 40 percent of these jobs will be filled by people with degrees from U.S. colleges and universities. In 2016 the federal government allowed U.S. companies to sponsor 65,000 foreigners with at least a bachelor\u2019s degree from any university, and 20,000 more visas went to individuals with advanced degrees from U.S. institutions. NCWIT and other organizations want to help more Americans compete for these jobs, especially women. Terry Morreale, NCWIT associate director says educators need to do their part. \u201cComputer science is not offered in all high schools,\u201d Morreale said. \u201cIn fact computer science is not even considered a part of a core curriculum in many high schools. And, there are definitely schools that have no computer science classes at all.\u201d She believes that the federal government could help solve this educational problem. \u201cAt the very least,\u201d she said, \u201ceveryone should have a fundamental understanding of computing.\u201d Incentives In the meantime, the organization Girls Who Code is stepping in. Noting that at age 13 to 17, girls lose interest in computing, Girls Who Code began offering a year-long program to teenage girls. It runs after-school clubs, monthly workshops, and special presentations by industry role models. NCWIT also has middle school programs for girls, including after-school programs, summer camps, clubs, and weekend conferences. One program, \u201cAspiration in Computing,\u201d is involved in talent development, leadership opportunities, scholarships and internships for technically inclined young women. Many corporations also participate nationally in providing internships for young women. Over time, these programs hope to raise the number of female freshmen or university undergraduates who enroll in computing programs above the current national figure of 4 percent. In New York State, it\u2019s worse: Dr. Carlos Medina, vice chancellor of diversity at the State University of New York (SUNY), says \u201conly 1 percent of women at the nation\u2019s largest public university is prepared or wants to get involved in computers.\u201d Visibility matters Even with the incentives of good pay and interesting work, women, especially women of color, are essentially absent from technology innovation. According to Scientific American, African American women make up 3 percent of the computing workforce, female Hispanics are 1 percent, and Asian women are 5 percent. According to Google\u2019s Computer Science research, minority women won\u2019t embrace the field until they see more people like themselves, making them feel more welcome and less anxious. And, most important, all groups need to understand that opportunities await them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New York City wants to be the next American tech powerhouse, and to get there it is tripling its investment in programs for computer science students. In the middle of the East River, on Roosevelt Island, one of the keys to the city\u2019s tech future is being built: Cornell Tech. When it\u2019s complete, it will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}