Raising the profile of technology amongst women

1 min read

Does the tech industry in the UK need to be more inclusive? According to techUK, the sector is failing to attract enough women engineers and says more women need to be encouraged to study STEM subjects and to then take up a career in STEM related areas.

Last week saw the launch of a new non-profit micro:bit Educational Foundation to build on the success of the BBC's micro:bit and to encourage more young people to develop their digital skills.

The impact of the micro:bit has been significant; users have visited the website more than 13million times, used the code simulator nearly 10m times and compiled code onto their devices nearly 2m times.

According to Gareth Stockdale, head of operations at BBC Learning: "The BBC micro:bit is making a real difference to children's lives."

As part of research carried out on behalf of the new Foundation, it was found there have been some very positive behavioural changes amongst students who have used the micro:bit.

Crucially, 39% of girls responding to the survey said they would now take ICT/computing science as an option, up from 23% previously. Meanwhile, 86% of all respondents said that micro:bit had made computer science more interesting, while 88% claimed coding was now less difficult than had previously been the case.

From small acorns ...