afterword (Ira's blog)

Let's Get MAGICal!!

Let's get More Active Girls In Computing (MAGIC) and lead the way into increasing the percentage (currently 28%) of women in the technology workforce.

That is the mantra of the MAGIC program. We are kicking off this project at the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) of Women in Computing being held this month in Orlando.

The problem at hand is that the number of girls entering the high tech arena continues to drop, as does the number of girls staying in computing and technology areas in college. It is also universally accepted that this trend is not due to a lack of talent. Rather, a multitude of societal factors are largely responsible for this phenomenon. This needs a-fixing, and fixing systemically. It needs fixing now. True, there are pockets of very worthwhile efforts or projects that address this problem in certain parts of the country, but those are not widely available. What is needed is a nationwide mentoring program, available to every middle and high school girl. MAGIC aims to be such a program.

MAGIC will be kicked off at a Birds of a Feather (BOF) session at GHC on the 18th of October. The title of our BOF is Mentoring Makes MAGIC for Middle and High School Girls. We plan to discuss challenges, implementation plans, resources to utilize, and publicity plans. And anything other major issue that the BOF participants will bring up. This promises to be a very fruitful discussion, and we are looking forward to getting strong participation from the GHC attendees.

We will also be actively signing up potential mentors and mentees (or leads thereof) at GHC for MAGIC. I am keeping my fingers crossed for a very successful kickoff of MAGIC! Here're our MAGIC BOF slides.

The MAGIC website has more information about the MAGIC program. Please visit this site and send your comments, either here, or at the MAGIC website.

Posted at 01:48AM Oct 17, 2007 by Ira Pramanick in MAGIC  |  Comments[0]