Lynne d JohnsonDirector, Digital and Social Media Strategies

Waggener Edstrom@lynneluvah

Women In Technology

First, A Little About Me

What I Did As A Kid

VS

The 80s Changed My Life

No Not That, But…

And This…

And This…

And Then…

And Even…

But Then I Quit

I Didn’t Know About Ada Lovelace

I Didn’t Know About Mae Jemison

The Problem

Girls & STEM…The Reality

The Girl Scout Research Institute Says…

Seventy-four percent of high school girls across the country are interested in the fields and subjects of STEM.

Girls are interested in the process of learning, asking questions, and problem solving.

Girls want to help people and make a difference in the world. Girls who are interested in STEM are high achievers who have

supportive adult networks and are exposed to STEM fields. Girls who are interested in STEM fields are actually interested in many

subjects and career opportunities—STEM is just one area of interest among many.

Perceived gender barriers are still high for girls and may help explain why STEM fields aren’t their top career choices.

African American and Hispanic girls have high interest in STEM, high confidence, and a strong work ethic, but have fewer supports, less exposure, and lower academic achievement than Caucasian girls.

Women & STEM…The Reality

US Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration Says…

Although women fill close to half of all jobs in the U.S. economy, they hold less than 25 percent of STEM jobs. This has been the case throughout the past decade, even as college-educated women have increased their share of the overall workforce.

Women with STEM jobs earned 33 percent more than comparable women in non-STEM jobs – considerably higher than the STEM premium for men. As a result, the gender wage gap is smaller in STEM jobs than in non-STEM jobs.

Women hold a disproportionately low share of STEM undergraduate degrees, particularly in engineering.

Women with a STEM degree are less likely than their male counterparts to work in a STEM occupation; they are more likely to work in education or healthcare.

How Do We Better Tell The Story Of Women In STEM?

Why Does It Matter?

Diversity Is Better For Business

Research Show…

Informational diversity - differences in educational background, training, and work experience increase the likelihood that diverse perspectives and opinions exist in a workgroup, which means:Workplace diversity leads to better productsWorkplace diversity leads to higher profits

Women Becoming A Force In Tech

Illuminate Ventures Says…

Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency: The high-tech companies that women build are more capital-efficient than the norm. The average venture-backed company run by a woman had annual revenues that were 12 percent higher, using an average of one-third less committed capital.

Big Progress in Recent Times: More women are serving as officers of venture-backed companies with successful exits. In 1988, only 4% of the 134 firms that went public in the U.S. had women in top management positions growing to over 41% percent by 2004. Of 2009’s 19 high-tech IPOs, all but two had at least one woman officer.

Fewer Failures: Despite often being capital-constrained, women-owned businesses are more likely to survive the transition from raw start-up to established company than the average.

Expanded IP Contributions: From 1985 to 2005, the annual number of U.S. female-invented fractional software patents increased 45-fold – three times the average growth rate in that sector.

Growing Influence in Tech: Women-owned or led firms are the fastest growing sector of new venture creation in the U.S., growing at five times the rate of all new firms between 1997 and 2006 – now representing nearly 50% of all privately held businesses. These companies are being founded in the same business sectors at similar ratios to those led by men.

Venture-level Returns: In the past 10 years more than 125 companies with over 200 women co-founders or officers have achieved IPOs or >$50M M&A exits in the U.S. high-tech sector alone

Diversity Improves Performance: Organizations that are the most inclusive of women in top management achieve 35% higher ROE and 34% better total return to shareholders versus their peers – and research shows gender diversity to be particularly valuable where innovation is key.

Financial Bottleneck: $1M+ woman led companies are twice as likely as those led by men to gain debt versus equity capital. In 2008 woman co-founded tech businesses gained less than 10% of venture investment in the high-tech sector

Impact of Women Investors: Women now represent just over 15 percent of the angel investors, but just 5%-7% of the partner-level high-tech venture capital investors in the U.S. Firms with women investment partners are 70 percent more likely to lead an investment in a woman entrepreneur than those with only male partners.

The Future

Dr. Cynthia BreazealCynthia Breazeal is an Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences

at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she founded and directs the Personal Robots Group at the Media Lab. She is a pioneer of social robotics and Human Robot Interaction. She has authored the book “Designing Sociable Robots”, has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles in journals and conferences on the topics of autonomous robotics, artificial intelligence, human robot interaction, and robot learning.

Jane McGonigal Jane McGonigal, PhD is a world-renowned designer of alternate reality

games — or, games that are designed to improve real lives and solve real problems. She is the New York Times bestselling author of Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World (Penguin Press, 2011) — and is the inventor and co-founder of SuperBetter, a game that has helped more than 120,000 players tackle real-life health challenges such as depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and traumatic brain injury.

Jonecia Keels and Jazmine Miller

In 2010, Jonecia Keels and Jazmine Miller won the AT&T Big Mobile on Campus Challenge for creating a next-generation e-learning mobile application available on the iOS App Store called HBCU Buddy, that educates users about historically black colleges and universities. Today, Keels is an iOS software engineer at Apple and Miller is a computer software professional in Atlanta.

Jonecia Keels and Jazmine Miller

In 2010, Jonecia Keels and Jazmine Miller won the AT&T Big Mobile on Campus Challenge for creating a next-generation e-learning mobile application available on the iOS App Store called HBCU Buddy, that educates users about historically black colleges and universities. Today, Keels is an iOS software engineer at Apple and Miller is a computer software professional in Atlanta.

Thank You!

Lynne d JohnsonDirector, Digital and Social Media Strategies

Waggener Edstrom@lynneluvah