IBM Hosts Junior High Girls for E.X.I.T.E.

This summer IBM sponsored 53 E.X.I.T.E. programs worldwide, 16 in North America. E.X.I.T.E. stands for Exploring Interests in Technology and Engineering. This program is run by professional women in Information Technology fields, and is targeted at junior high girls.

eWeek has an article covering this year’s program:

Teen Girls Play with Technology at IBM Camp

A quote from the article about the camp:

“Camp volunteers spent several weeks creating activities that would serve to attract junior high girls while also giving them a realistic taste for future careers in technology. The girls learned how to make “binary bracelets” (of beads that sported ones and zeroes on them), how to use PCs and light detectors to program Lego robots, and how to make bubble gum. (“It was sticky, but it was really good,” said Vanessa Banham, 13, a student at Boston Latin Academy in Boston.) But they also learned about the headaches of project management by playing a team-building game in the virtual world Second Life. And they learned about worldwide marketing issues—using their bubble gum as an example—in an activity called “Globalize Your Product.”"

This is a great article that addresses the real deficiency in the IT world of women rising in ranks to leadership positions. Jump to the article for all the details.