Efforts to Attract Women to Technology Include Free Housing, Free Tuition and More

On January 7, 2016

The economy seems to be booming in United States in recent years. According to the experts, along with Great Britain, United States has the best economy in the world today. With the economy in such good shape, there are lots of employment opportunities for people in the Information Technology (IT) sector. In fact, a booming economy seem to give rise to some very interesting and unconventional ways to attract new hires. Microsoft and other technology companies are using various strategies to fill the shortage of software developers. Because there is a shortage of women in technology, one company in Seattle is offering free housing to attract women in technology. Another is offering free-tuition to women who are interested in becoming programmers.

TUNE, a software startup in Seattle is offering a 3,100 square-foot house rent-free to 8 women in Seattle near University of Washington (UW). The goal is to encourage more women to get involved in technology. Ada Developers Academy in downtown Seattle is offering a selective tuition-free program to women. Their goal is to attract women who have little or no experience in programming become software developers. As I mentioned in my article Create Cool Apps Without Being a Developer, Microsoft is practically begging education institutes to produce more app developers. They are offering free resources to students and ensuring them that this is one area that they are pretty much guaranteed to get a job when they graduate.

(Credit: AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Although women make up the majority of population in our country, in 2014 only 14% of computer-science college graduates were women. The University of Washington (UW) in Seattle is an exception because last year 31% of its computer science undergraduates were women. That’s more than twice the national average. Gender inequality can be bad in most facets of our society. Computer science in particular, and technology in general, is a male-dominated industry and we desperately need more women in technology.

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