Candice TillmanIt is said that there are few women in IT because there are not enough role models. There are few examples in the media or in movies that make a girl think “Wow, I want to be like her!” or “Wow, she did it, so I can do it! And really, I almost don’t remember movies or books where the heroine is a hacker, for example. Butoooo… there are examples not from movies, but from real life:
Gayle Laakmann McDowell
Gayle is the author of the famous books Cracking the Coding Interview, Cracking the PM Interview, and Cracking the Tech Career. Gayle graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and worked as an intern at Apple and Microsoft and then four years at Google as a Software Engineer.
Gayle now works as a strategic hiring consultant and is the founder of the CareerCup website.
She is active in answering technical and non-technical questions on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Gayle-Laakmann-McDowell and you can read her personal blog for lots of career advice http://www.gayle.com/career-advice/.
Melinda Gates
The only thing you probably know about Melinda Gates is that she’s Bill Gates’ wife. But for more than 10 years Melinda worked as a programmer at Microsoft. She was involved in the development of many of the company’s multimedia products, such as Publisher, Microsoft Bob, Encarta and Expedia.
In a recent Facebook post, she revealed that she became interested in Computer Science thanks to a computer science teacher at her school. Melinda Gates received her bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Economics from Duke University in 1986 and her MBA from the same university in 1987.
Melinda supports the Women in IT movement, I found this interview of hers quite interesting.
Sue Black
You are mother of 3 kids and you think it is too late to start programming? See here ) ->
Sue Black was born in 1962 in Fareham, UK. Sue left school at 16 and had three children by the time she was 20. By 25, Sue was a single mother, living in a shelter for battered women.
Then came the turning point: Sue took a math course at night school and, thanks to that course, got into Computer Science at the University of London. She graduated with a BA in 1993 and a PhD in Software Engineering in 2001.
Sue Black has worked as a Senior Research Fellow at London South Bank University and as Head of Information Systems at the University of Westminster.
Now – in addition to being a Computer Science professor at Durham University – she is a technical evangelist, speaker, founder of the online community BCSWomen (British Computer Society Women) and offline community #techmums, author of over 20 research articles, and, judging by her peers, an outstanding leader.
There are her research articles and interviews online.
Marissa Mayer
Marissa Mayer became known as president of Yahoo! But her successes began much earlier: She graduated with honors from Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree, earned a master’s degree in artificial intelligence, and joined Google in 1999, becoming the company’s 21st employee. During her 13 years at Google, she was an engineer, designer, product manager and supervisor.
Mayer held key roles in Google Search, Google Images, Google News, Google Maps, Google Books, Google Product Search, Google Toolbar, iGoogle and Gmail. Her work at Yahoo cannot be called successful, but her background is still noteworthy.
Cynthia Breazeal
Cynthia Breazeal has a Ph.D. in robotics from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). She graduated from UCLA with a degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1989, and received her Master Degree and Doctor of Science from MIT.
Her main areas of expertise are robotics, social robots, and artificial intelligence. To learn more about her, visit her website at http://cynthiabreazeal.media.mit.edu/.
Sandy Carter
Sandy Carter is vice president of Amazon Web Services and, before that, general manager at IBM.
Sandy Carter received her undergraduate degree in Math and Computer Science in 1986 and her MBA from Harvard in 1989.
Sandy leads the Girls in Tech movement, and is the author of “The New Language of Business: SOA & Web 2.0.”, “Extreme Innovation: 3 Superpowers for Purpose and Profit” and “Geek Girls are Chic!” (despite the glamorous title, it’s a book with some pretty sound advice – you can read it here)
