If IT is such a great thing, where are all the women?

I had a very interesting evening last night at the BlackBerry Women & Technology Awards debate last night listening to a discussion about why there are so few women in IT. The panel consisted of Karen Price, CEO of  eSkills UK; Rachel Elnaugh, Entrepreneur, founder of Red Letter Days, and Dragon; Jackie Edwards, lecturer in Women's Access to Information Technology at De Montfort and winner of a W&T Award last year; and Dr Glenda Stone    Founder and CEO of Aurora, a company dedicated to advancing women's position within the workplace. It was chaired by the journalist Kate Buckley.

Rachel Elnaugh kicked off proceedings by suggesting that women weren't biologically predisposed to being good at IT (you can see if you're left brained or right brained over at Inky Circus). Check out the video after the turn

First off, apologies for the blurry quality - we did manage to get some decent quality footage later in the proceedings, but this early stuff was some of the most interesting, so it's worth sticking with. Especially interesting is Glenda Stone's description of some of the changes that Accenture is making to its business. Apparently, the company is offering help with IVF treatments and providing support for women all the way through their careers. I'll stick that up in the next post.