Girls urged to pursue careers involving computer software

New nonprofit organization Girl Develop It is working to encourage more women to become software developers in Pittsburgh. We love seeing organizations like this who help women and girls to pursue their full potential!

An organization that encourages women to consider careers in software development is off to a strong start in Pittsburgh, even though fewer female students and professionals nationwide have been showing interest in the field.


Membership in the nonprofit Girl Develop It chapter in Pittsburgh totaled 134 as of Tuesday. And 60 women have signed up so far to attend a kickoff social on Thursday at mobile commerce and applications developer Branding Brand’s headquarters in the South Side.

“When I went to Pitt, I was the only one, or one of two women in most of my classes as a computer engineering student,” said Julie Pagano, a software engineer at Vivisimo Inc. in Squirrel Hill and one of the chapter’s two founders.

Then, “You get into the field, and there are less people higher up in the field to help mentor women,” said Pagano, a 2007 Pitt graduate. “So there’s the issue that a lot of women drop out. They make it through college, they make it into the field and about mid-career” many leave.

Chapter co-founder Lindsey Bieda, a developer at Branding Brand and a 2009 Pitt computer science grad, said women’s representation in software development peaked in the mid-1980s when personal computers were new and their possibilities were a hot topic.

Since then, the field gradually has become more “masculinized” with a culture that can discourage women, as well as minorities, she said, although Girl Develop It and other organizations for computer professionals have been “pushing back.”

The National Center for Women & Information Technology reports that women accounted for 18 percent of computer and information-science bachelor’s degrees at colleges in 2010 — a 51 percent drop from 1985.

And Girls Develop It’s website says the “budding developer community” is up to 91 percent male.

The organization lists a half dozen established chapters — New York, Columbus, Austin and Philadelphia in the United States, plus Ottawa, Canada, and Sydney.

Classes in programming, socials and “code and coffee” events are held to fan interest in the growing, and typically high-paying profession.

Starting computer science grads can make $56,000 a year, with median salaries for experienced workers of $97,400, the organization said.

Nearly 1.4 million computing-related jobs will be added in the United States by 2018, a 22 percent increase from 2008, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects.

The University of Pittsburgh has about 230 men and 28 women undergraduates majoring in computer science. For computer engineering, it’s about 172 male and 25 female majors.

Pitt hired Tasha Isenberg in April as outreach coordinator for the computer science department, a new position designed to help balance those gender numbers, as well as encourage more minorities to study computer fields.

“It’s all about breaking down the stereotypes,” Isenberg said, adding the university is sponsoring several programs and awards this academic year aimed at middle and high school girls. The Tech Divas program, for example, brings middle school girls to the Oakland campus for web design, programming and robotics activities.

This fall’s freshman class of computer science majors at Carnegie Mellon University was 28 percent female, down slightly from 32 percent last year. CMU’s School of Computer Science enrolls about 130 freshmen each fall, and this year’s 4,250 applicants set a record.

The university’s Women at SCS program was started in 1999 to connect female students in the freshman through senior classes, plus graduate women across the school’s seven departments, to make sure they don’t miss out on mentoring and other opportunities, said Carol Frieze, the director.

The number of women graduating with degrees in computer science has been declining since 1984,” Frieze said. “We are one of the top schools that has started paying attention to what is going on — we know that in the local community girls are not getting the opportunity to explore technology and increase their skills.”

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