what is tech2morrow?
tech2morrow is a website providing resources for girls to learn about information technology (IT) careers. (What is IT?). Often it is unclear what a person in IT does, even university students have trouble understanding this. New jobs are created every day and this site shows a portfolio of the different IT careers that exist. The overall aim of this site is to open girls up to the opportunity that working with technology can be fun, exciting and challenging, and to challenge the stereotype that you have to be a geek (a negative image often portrayed by the media) to be in IT.
why tech2morrow?
The site is aimed primarily at 12-18 year olds, but also more generally for anyone interested in finding out what a career in IT is all about. The number of women working in the IT industry and studying in technology-related university courses in Australia and in many places around the world is at an all time low. Our volunteer participants and sponsors (who we also could not do this project without) have a strong desire to encourage more girls and women into IT careers.
how does tech2morrow work?
We are taking a novel approach to presenting the diversity of IT careers/roles that women have in Australia. This site uses interactive technology, with feeds from our pics in flickr, bookmarks from our delicious and we are about to launch our blog. Our participants use Internet technology on N73 mobile phones (kindly donated by Nokia) to upload photos of their daily working lives to a flickr account, and these are then fed through this site. The first photos of our portfolio can be seen as a slideshow on the home page or through our individual profiles. Otherwise you can see them at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tech2morrow/. We are aiming to have around 100 different IT careers represented on this site by the end of 2008.
who is tech2morrow?
tech2morrow is organised by volunteer Jenine Beekhuyzen but could not happen if it wasn't for the other volunteer participants who are wonderful women working in the IT industry. We all generally agree that we need to have more females working with technology; to level the playing field (why should the boys get all the glory and all the $$$), and for females to be involved in developing technology and ultimately contributing to something that is such an important part of most peoples lives - imagine what technology would look like if there were more girls developing it!
how can you help tech2morrow?
To keep this project running, we need sponsors to cover our costs of uploading photos, domain registration and phone postage to participants across Australia. If you would like to sponsor, or to participate, please contact Jenine Beekhuyzen or email girlieitbook
complimenting tech2morrow ... Tech Girls Are Chic, Not Just Geek!
We have a book! Due to be launched on the 8th of March 2008, a kind of offline version of tech2morrow will be available to school girls free across Australia (others interested in getting a copy will be able to, details available shortly). We have just given the book a name 'Tech Girls Are Chic, Not Just Geek', and the book was inspired by similar reasons to that of tech2morrow. My friend and colleague Bec Dorries is my (Jenine) co-editor on the book. Click here for more details which will be updated regularly leading up to the launch. Join our mailing list to be kept up to date!
