Special Projects (CNS): National Center for Women and Information Technology

激励和允许更多的女性选择信息技术领域的职业是一个令人信服的解决方案。创新、全球竞争力和劳动力可持续性。然而，实现妇女的贡献取决于克服限制她们参与计算机的持久的社会和文化进程的复杂性。供给侧因素影响了有兴趣学习计算机或从事IT职业的女孩和妇女的数量。需求方面的因素降低了组织吸引和留住妇女的努力的效力。此外，关于性别和技术的文化陈规定型观念的广泛影响向妇女和影响她们的人表明，她们在创造计算机技术方面不太可能比男子有才能或兴趣。这些刻板印象导致女孩、父母、辅导员和教育工作者忽视或拒绝将计算机作为一种职业，并忽视加剧这一问题的教育体系。国家妇女和信息技术中心（NCWIT）成立于三年前，以创新和系统的方式解决这些问题。在最初的三年里，NCWIT已经建立了一个以联盟为基础的基础设施，其目标是联合所有当前的努力，加速其进展，扩大其影响范围。NCWIT现在寻求扩大资金，以推动这一国家基础设施的利用。NCWIT由100多家知名企业、学术机构、政府机构和非营利组织组成，致力于促进妇女参与信息技术（IT）。四个联盟致力于整个教育和职业发展管道的IT改革，包括K-12教育、大学水平的推广和课程改革、企业招聘和留用以及创业项目。联盟成员分享其改革努力，学习和试点最佳做法，回收有效的做法，抛弃无效的做法，影响政策，参与信息技术形象和改革运动，并作为地方变革推动者发挥作用。全国两次的NCWIT研讨会讨论的主题包括创新、多样性、K-12教育，以及专注于招聘、留住和提升IT行业女性的有前途的实践。一流的材料和资源为人们提供了提高组织内部意识、接触目标人群、实施和评估改革以及分享改革成果的工具。NCWIT还积极与其他一些知名组织合作，通过研究驱动的营销活动来提高计算机的公众形象。广泛、持续的内部和外部评估改进了NCWIT的方法和努力，形成了一种自省和自我分析的文化。这个项目处于独特的位置，成功地克服了阻碍女性发展的复杂和挥之不去的条件。美国参与计算。NCWIT的基础设施已经到位，联盟正在发展，联盟成员渴望在其地方组织中实施干预措施，并与全国社区分享成果。NCWIT建立了一个强大的和备受尊重的努力，吸引了广泛的计算社区，形成了一种基于循证实践的文化。NCWIT是唯一一个创建全国性的能力建设基础设施的组织，其重点是改革整个IT教育管道，以及IT组织的文化。增加女性?中国对信息技术的参与对国家产生了深远的影响。信息和计算技术不仅以前所未有的方式渗透到我们日常生活的方方面面，而且所有的工程和科学发现和创新现在都依赖于计算科学。增加合格计算专业人员的数量可以支持国家计划的目标（例如，纳米技术、网络基础设施计划），我们的经济、安全、国防和医疗保健系统都是以计算为中心的。增加妇女的参与不仅有助于实现国家目标，而且可以通过整合各种想法来改进计算机系统、应用程序和产品的开发和设计，同时有助于克服妇女的经济差距。

Inspiring and enabling more women to choose careers in information technology is a compelling solution for the nation?s innovation, global competitiveness, and workforce sustainability. Yet realizing the contributions of women depends on overcoming the complex of enduring social and cultural processes that limit their participation in computing. Supply-side factors affect the number of girls and women interested in learning about computing or pursuing an IT career. Demand-side factors reduce the effectiveness of organizational efforts to attract and retain women. In addition, the broad influence of cultural stereotypes about gender and technology suggest to women and those who influence them that they are less likely than men to have talent or interest in creating computing technology. These stereotypes lead girls, parents, counselors, and educators to overlook or reject computing as a career and to ignore the educational system that reinforces the problem. The National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) was formed three years ago to address these issues in an innovative and systematic way.In its first three years, NCWIT has established an alliance-based infrastructure with the goal of uniting all current efforts, accelerating their progress, and extending their reach. NCWIT now seeks extension funding to drive the utilization of this national infrastructure. NCWIT comprises more than 100 prominent corporations, academic institutions, government agencies, and non-profit organizations cooperating to increase women's participation in information technology (IT). Four alliances address IT reform along the entire educational and career pipeline, with programs in K-12 education, college-level outreach and curriculum reform, corporate recruitment and retention, and entrepreneurial ventures. Alliance members share their reform efforts, learn about and pilot best practices, recycle what works and discard what does not, influence policy, participate in IT image and reform campaigns, and serve as local change agents.National, bi-annual NCWIT workshops address topics such as innovation, diversity, K-12 education, and promising practices focused on recruiting, retaining, and advancing women in IT. Top-notch materials and resources give people the tools to raise awareness within their organizations, reach out to targeted populations, implement and evaluate reforms, and share their results. NCWIT is also actively collaborating with several other high-profile organizations to improve the public image of computing using a research-driven marketing campaign. Extensive, ongoing internal and external evaluation results in refinement of NCWIT methods and efforts and has resulted in a culture of introspection and self-analysis.This project is uniquely situated for successfully overcoming the complex and lingering conditions that hinder women?s participation in computing. The NCWIT infrastructure is in place, alliances are growing, and alliance members are eager to implement interventions in their local organizations and share results with the national community. NCWIT has built a robust and highly-respected effort that has engaged the broad computing community, forming a culture based on evidence-based practices. NCWIT is the only organization creating a national, capacity-building infrastructure focused on reform of the entire IT educational pipeline, as well as the culture of IT organizations.Increasing women?s participation in IT has far-reaching national consequences. Not only do information and computing technologies pervade all aspects of our everyday lives in an unprecedented way, but all engineering and science discovery and innovation are now dependent on computational science. Increasing the pool of qualified computing professionals supports the goals of national initiatives (e.g., nanotechnology, the Cyberinfrastructure Initiative) and our economic, security, defense, and health care systems are computing-centered. Increasing the participation of women not only supports national goals, but improves the development and design of computing systems, applications, and products through the integration of diverse ideas while helping to overcome economic disparities for women.