The Association of Computing Machinery Women’s Chapter provides mentoring, leadership and scholarship opportunities to help empower and motivate women in computer science.  

Deepshikha Bhati, a computer science professor and vice chair of ACM-W, said the chapter is currently growing and giving women the ability to pursue many different careers in the field. 

“The organization gives many resources to women within the technology field,” she said. “We invite women who are working in the industry to come and talk to students and give them resources on how to pursue a career. They help give the students motivation to continue pursuing a job in the field.”

Kent State’s chapter of ACM-W started on Aug. 5, 2019 and is open for any students to join if they are interested in learning to improve the working environments and learning atmospheres for women within the technology field. The group regularly meets and hosts gatherings, where female students interested in the technology can meet and interact with one another. 

Once a year, there is the Ohio Celebration of Women in Computer Science Conference, where other chapters of students involved in ACM-W from various universities attend. The conference consists of different workshops for students to attend, as well as various speakers discussing the industry for women.

Bhati took female students from different technology fields to the conference on Feb. 24-25. Women from various different backgrounds and ethnicities were present at the conference, which allowed students to network with women from other computer-related fields. 

“If I have a class full of 50 students, only about 10 of them are girls. There is a major gender gap in the computer science program,” she said. “Companies are making progress allowing more benefits to women working in the field, but it is still a male dominated field.”

The awareness that is arising around the gender gap and pay scale is leading to more women’s rights movements, which is allowing for steady improvements for women in the industry, Bhati said. 

“While it is improving, progress does still need to be made,” she said. “By having organizations like the ACM-W, we are helping to empower women and show them they do have resources available to help them achieve goals in this field.”

Bhati said a female mentor can be a major help in allowing women to explore more of the field.

“Having a mentor or role model to help them can boost their confidence in pursuing this area of study,” she said. “There are all kinds of different areas to look into within computer science, like programming and data analysis. Reach out to ACM-W and other various workshops and help spread information to help motivate women to pursue this field.” 

Molly Hoffer is a digital tech. You can contact her at [email protected].