Women in Computing

I had to come all the way to Namibia to attend my first seminar on Women in Computing. I was invited to the event by my dear colleague Prof Heike Winschiers-Theophilus that I met just yesterday in her office at the Namibia University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Computing and Informatics.

Heike is one of the leading scholars in the demanding and highly inter-disciplinary area of co-design. She has initiated and is involved in exciting research projects on how to integrate heritage and indigenous wisdom with the opportunities opened by existing and tomorrow’s technology, for example with the San youth. This is close to my interest in engaging with people on the ground, in their everyday, real life. A universal theme that is equally important for people in the Global South and North.

But women. I grew up in the 60s in a home that was almost gender neutral, in terms of how to divide the everyday responsibilities and household. As always is the case, children either follow what they learn at home or do exactly opposite, and I am afraid that I did the latter. Listening to the panel, I figured out that I had lived with my wife and children in the way similar to that of some Namibian husbands that the panelists were referring to.

However, the main theme of the seminar was about how to get rid of all the diverse barriers or glass ceilings that prevents one from reaching their goal or living up to their talent. At the time of emerging conflicts, worldwide, we need to make use of all the human potential that we have; the academia as well as the rest of the society have to act as channels for releasing the dormant power, whether indigenous or learned.

It was actually one of my former Namibian students, MSc (University of Joensuu, Finland) Helena Nahum, that asked the panelists how to ensure that the countless inventive student projects would not get lost after the students get the marks of them and finish the course.

I left the inspiring seminar by wondering how we could shape our software engineering curriculum towards one that integrates the students’ potential and elaborates it towards concrete outcomes that make our world better. Otherwise, the learning community will stay comfortably under another glass ceiling, or for that matter, within a glass box.

Maybe a topic for Helena’s further research?