On women in IT
In response to Karen Price of E-Skills UK, who said the IT industry must find new ways of attracting women to the sector
Government legislation encourages discrimination against employing women in the small business sector. Small companies cannot afford to employ women of childbearing age if they are likely to be burdened with the administration and costs to the company of maternity benefits, family tax credits, etc. This overwhelming red tape discourages small business employers from employing young women.
Man Childs, Website Management Services
Does the industry need to attract more women, or men for that matter? The IT industry in the UK is at an all time low. We have never seen so many experienced IT contractors out of work. The E-Skills project aims to bring 40,000 people into IT, even though there are currently not enough jobs for IT professionals.
There should be no distinction between men and women in IT jobs, as long as they are effective. The nations' perception of the IT industry will have to change before hoping to attract women to a vocation that has traditionally been filled by men. Why are we not trying to attract women into the building trade or the armed forces? Why is all the focus on IT?
Name withheld
On grid computing
Cliff Saran wanted to ensure that he knew to whom he was donating his spare computing resources
It is simple. If you are donating something of yours (in this case your PC's spare power), then you have a right to know what that power is being used for.
Sarah Slade, Web editor
If Cliff Saran does not want to process the smallpox research data, he can opt out on the "Member services - my device manager" page at www.grid.org. Go down to the foot of the page and clear the "Smallpox research" box. Then all his spare cycles will be processing the second phase of the cancer research project.
Dagna Gaythorpe
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This was first published in April 2003
