[Ict4women] Wanted: Cyberellas for Europe

[Sophia Huyer]

"Wanted: Cyberellas for Europe"

EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding is attending today the Global  
Meeting of the Women's Forum for Economy and Society in Deauville  
(France) to meet with other female leaders from politics and industry.  
She will call for more women with Information and Communication  
Technology (ICT) skills (so-called 'Cyberellas'). This will be a  
powerful tool to address the shortage of 300,000 ICT qualified staff  
expected in the EU by 2010.

Mrs Reding said this morning in Deauville: "Europe's capacity to  
recover after the financial and economic crisis will depend to a  
considerable extent on the health and innovation capacity of the  
sector of ICT. Representing over 5% of the EU's GDP and contributing  
50% to the EU's total productivity growth and, the ICT sector is one  
of the economy's most dynamic ones. However, the ICT sector will only  
flourish if it can rely on well trained staff with excellent IT skills."

"This is why the present shortage of IT skills in Europe is alarming:  
the ICT sector in Belgium currently faces a shortage of 10,100 IT  
qualified staff, in Poland 18,300, in Italy 2,800, in France 4.300, in  
Spain 41,800 and in Germany, Europe's largest economy, even 87,800!"[1]

"One solution for closing this dramatic skills gap is staring us in  
the eyes: making use of the female potential. Only one sixth of ICT  
employees in the EU are women! Female graduates in engineering account  
for less than 20% of all higher education graduates and for only 0.9%  
in computer sciences. Only 30% of scientists and engineers in the EU  
are women. The female potential is thus clearly under-exploited, as we  
can also see from the fact that female employment is currently at just  
57% in Europe."

"This is why I call on industry and politicians responsible for  
education and higher education in the Member States: Forget that ICT  
was once a man's world! That is the past. Today, IT jobs are more than  
engineering. They require interactivity, creativity, social networking  
and emotional intelligence. Skills that certainly many men have. But  
women as well. All doors should therefore be opened wide to train and  
recruit more women for ICT jobs."

"We will simply need more 'Cyberellas' to have a happy end to Europe's  
problems of an ageing workforce, falling birth rates and skills  
shortages. Instead of solving these problems with a magic wand – as  
the classical 'Cinderella' probably would have done – a 'Cyberella'  
will use her science or engineering degree to get an attractive job in  
the ICT sector and make her way to a decision-making position. A  
'Cyberella' will be able to contribute to the design and production of  
tomorrow's technologies and communication networks. She will thereby  
be able to have a strong impact on shaping Europe's economic and  
societal future."

"Only through the joint forces of academic institutions, the private  
and public sectors will we be able to make best use of Europe's female  
potential. This is why the European Commission, together with an  
industry working group, is currently preparing a 'European Code of  
Best Practices for Women in ICT'. This Code, which I expect to be  
ready early in 2009, will cover education, recruitment, career  
development, uptake after leave and professional maturity. I call on  
all industry leaders to support the development of this code and to  
fill it with ambition. If we harness women's skills more successfully  
this could result in an increase of 2% in GDP."

Background:
One of the initiatives of Commissioner Viviane Reding to raise  
awareness about Europe's female potential for ICT is the Shadowing  
Initiative, organised every year since 2007 (see IP/08/392). It gives  
young pupils and students the opportunity to experience, at an early  
stage of their education, the ICT world by 'shadowing' a female ICT  
engineer or technologist as she goes about her daily duties. So far,  
70 pupils and students from 15 countries have participated in such  
'Shadowing', which is well documented in films on the Commission's  
website:
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/itgirls/shadowing/index_en.htm 
.

Following the example given by the Commission, shadowing days are now
also being organised in Germany, Luxembourg, the U.S., and in Australia.
For more information on Women in ICT:
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/itgirls/info/index_en.htm

For more information on the Women's Forum for Economy and Society in
Deauville: http://womens-forum.com/zzRestofsite/a_2008events_Deauville.php
________________________________

[1] Source, IDC forecasts for 2008:
http://www.est.ipcb.pt/academiacisco/IDC_Networking_Skills_Shortage_EW_Europe_FINAL_5_Oct.pdf


http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/08/631&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=nl#fn1


--
More information is also available at  WIGSAT-Women, Knowledge,  
Technology,  http://www.wigsat.org.

The book "Cinderella or Cyberella? Empowering Women in the Knowledge  
Economy" is available at Kumarian Books, http://www.kpbooks.com/books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=187254 
.
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