A specialist forum for female members of the BCS has been launched.
It has already received a positive response from 500 members keen
to discuss issues surrounding women in IT, writes John
Kavanagh.
The BCSWomen Specialist Group held its inaugural meeting in an
online chatroom and now aims to hold monthly chatroom events and at
least one traditional meeting a year. In between there will be
informal discussions via the Internet.
The main aims are to provide an opportunity for networking and to
support women working in IT and those about to enter the
profession, including helping them find mentors.
"Women from around the globe can now be part of a network dedicated
to women working in IT," says Sue Black, senior lecturer in
computing at London's South Bank University, who is chairing the
group. She set up the specialist group after successfully running a
women's group based on the BCS London Central Branch.
"Many are specialists in diverse areas of IT - development,
networking, project management and so on. Others have less
specialised but vital roles, such as facilitating communication
between IT and business management.
"Women of all ages often have different concerns and priorities
from those of their male colleagues; as a result they must make
trade-offs. These can be in their personal or family life, to
conform to what is expected of them at work, or for their
careers.
"It has been evident from discussions held so far in the group that
women typically do not hesitate to put their family first. A
positive by-product of this is that they have learnt to become more
proficient in their approach to their personal and professional
lives.
"There is a big shortage of women in IT, yet those who take this
route normally find themselves in work that is very interesting, in
an environment that is dynamic and highly motivated. They can
however miss female contact at work. We hope the networking
opportunities provided by this group will help fill this
gap."
BCS president 2003
An international expert in
multimedia information systems, content-based retrieval and digital
libraries is set to become BCS president in 2003 - just as the
society expands its member services in this area.
Wendy Hall, currently BCS vice-president, knowledge services, will
become deputy president to John Ivinson, an IT consultant, in
October and president a year later, if the pattern followed
throughout the society's history continues.
Hall is professor of computer science at Southampton University.
Her research interests include multimedia information systems,
hypermedia systems, digital libraries, content-based retrieval,
agent systems and user interfaces. She was the founding head of the
university's Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia Research Group and
has published more than 200 papers in these areas and regularly
speaks at international conferences.
Hall was made a CBE and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of
Engineering in 2000. She holds the highest BCS membership grade of
fellow.
Details of the BCSWomen Specialist Group are available by e-mailing
Sue Black at blackse@sbu.ac.uk.