Women into Computing

This publication contains a selection of papers from the Women into Computing (WiC) Conferences which have been held over the last three years. Major national conferences were held in 1988 and 1990 and a smaller conference on the subject of organizing workshops for schoolgirls was held in 1989. The papers cover a variety of issues ranging from the discussion of attitudes of girls to technology at school, the management of classes and limited resources, making links between schools and industry and organizing workshops for schoolgirls, through to the discussion of courses for women returners and examples of models of co-operation between industry and schools. Women into Computing is an active working group, which was formed in 1987 to encourage more women into the field of computing. It focuses on promoting interest at school, further, higher and continuing education levels with the longer term aim of increasing the numbers of women with fulfilling careers in technology-related areas.The skills shortage is already a serious one and demographic changes mean that industry will, over the next decade, need to pay increasing attention to short term and long term measures to overcome the crisis, one of which will be the increasing employment of women in increasingly technological work.