Gender in Information Technology: Review of a Mentoring Initiative

There is a general lack of women in the Science, Engineering and Information technology research fields at all career levels. This is a worldwide phenomenon that seems related to social and cultural stereotypes. The Gender and Science ITC-irst group has investigated whose actions could be proposed to support the female researchers inside ITC-irst in spreading out effective role models and in improving their scientific skills. A first cycle of scientific lectures was organized in the winter 2002-2003. At the same time, a series of mentoring workshops was proposed with the main objective of increasing the experience of ITC-irst female researchers and to grow the self-esteem for all the participants. Given the positive results of the first initiatives, the Gender and Science ITC-irst group organized a second series of scientific lectures and mentoring in winter 20032004. All the activities were organized paying particular attention to gender issues. This paper describes the second series of activities, and their evaluation.