谁说女子不如男：IT巨头联手推出“编程女生”计划

A shortage of female workers in science and engineering has long posed an image problem for Silicon Valley. Now a one-time congressional candidate is trying to make a difference, starting with a summer training program in New York City.缺少理工科女性是硅谷长时间以来的一个问题。现在，一名国会候选人试图在纽约开设暑期培训课程改变这一现状。A new organization called Girls who Codeis starting an eight-week program in July for 20 high-school-age girls, who will learn how to build websites and mobile apps and start their own companies. There will also be workshops on topics such a financial literacy, computer science and robotics. The group said it has financial backing from companies including Google, eBay, General Electric and Twitter.一个名为“编程女生”的新组织将在七月份为20个高中年纪的女孩子开设八个星期的课程，在这个课程中，这些女孩子将会学会怎么建立网站和移动应用，甚至开设自己的公司。课程中也包含财务知识、计算机科学和机器人技术。该组织表示已经得到了一些公司的经济援助，包括谷歌、易趣、通用电气和推特。Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code and a former deputy public advocate in New York City, said the seeds for the program were planted during her unsuccessful 2010 run for U.S. Congress, when she was struck by tech inequalities.润丝曼·萨贾尼是“编程女生”的创立人，也是纽约公共宣传的正式代理人。她说，该计划的萌芽是在2010年，她在美国国会上竞选失败，失败原因是科学界男女比例的不平衡。“Women are going to be left behind,” Saujani said. “Technology has the potential to create income inequity and we need to do something about it.”“女性就要落在后面了。”萨贾尼说。“技术是造成收入不平衡的潜在力量，为此我们要做点什么才行。”Cries of “where are all the women?” reverberate from Wall Street to politics and beyond, but the dearth of women is particularly stark in technology fields, where talent is held up as the quality that trumps historic barriers of sex, race or class. Despite many programs aimed at encouraging women in tech fields, fewer than 20% of undergraduate degrees in engineering or computing and information sciences were awarded to women in 2009, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology.“女性在哪里？”的呼喊声从华尔街蔓延到政坛甚至更远，但技术领域的女性缺乏问题尤其严重。对于人才的高要求阻碍了女性的发展，这一点比过去的性别障碍、种族、阶级障碍等都要更为严重。尽管很多奖项的目的在于鼓励科技界的女性，但根据国家女性和信息技术中心的资料显示，2009年工程学士学位和计算机和信息科学学士学位的女性获得者还不到总人数的20%。Girls Who Code and other initiatives aimed at drawing more women to tech fields say the key is to get girls interested in science, engineering and computing when they are very young, and support them to pursue education in technology.“编程女生”和其他方案的目的都在于吸引更多女性进入技术领域，而吸引的关键是让女性在小时候就对科学、工程和计算机产生兴趣，还要支持他们接受科技教育。“If we want there to be more women who pursue careers in engineering and computer science and feel welcome in these fields, we have to work on ways to increase the number of women studying engineering — it’s that simple,” wrote Sara Haider, a Twitter engineer, in a blog post Tuesday.“如果要更多女性从事工程和计算机技术工作，使她们在科技领域受到欢迎，就必须想办法增加学习工程技术的女性数量——就这么简单。”推特的工程师萨拉·海德周二在她的博客这样写道。Girls Who Code has the advantage of a high-profile founder, Saujani, the onetime hedge-fund attorney and former campaign fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. Saujani drew a spotlight during her campaign, which had the backing of tech and Wall Street luminaries such as Morgan Stanley’s then-chairman John Mack and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. 编程女生创始人是知名的萨贾尼，她曾是对冲基金代理人和希拉里的前任选举活动筹款人。萨贾尼当时在希拉里的选举时掀起过高潮，得到了科技界和华尔街杰出人物的支持，比如当时摩根史坦利投资公司的董事长约翰·马克和推特的联合创始人杰克·多西。Saujani and Kristen Titus, executive director of Girls Who Code, said they focused on drawing participants from less affluent families. Saujani said she went to New York City public housing developments and asked tenants to identify girls who are excited about computers. Saujani said 70% of New York City public school students have had no access to computers in school.萨贾尼和“编程女生”的执行董事克里斯汀·提图斯表示他们着重于吸引平民家庭的孩子过来参与计划。萨贾尼说，她到过纽约的公共住宅区，从居民口中打探对计算机感兴趣的女孩子。萨贾尼说，纽约70%公立学校的学生无法在学校使用计算机。In addition to the eight weeks of workshops, participants in Girls Who Code also will be paired with female mentors in engineering roles at AppNexus, an advertising technology firm in New York, and other women entrepreneurs in New York City.除了这八周的课程，“编程女生”的参与者还会跟纽约广告科技公司AppNexus的女性工程师和其他纽约的女企业家一起学习。Girls Who Code said it hopes to expand the program to other cities next year.“编程女生”表示，希望明年能把这个计划拓展到其他城市。

沪江英语快讯：IT界一直是男人的天下，女性程序员更是少之又少。近日一些技术公司希望改变这一状况。Twitter、GE、Google和eBay四家IT巨头联合宣布推出一个名叫“编程女生”（Girls Who Code）的计划。他们希望借此能促进更多年轻女性来学习编程成为程序员和工程师。