This report, sponsored by NCWIT, adds to the relatively limited research studying patterns of women-founded, venture-backed startups. While others have tended to look at topline aggregates of venture deals and funding amounts by the gender composition of founding teams, researchers for this report track “first financings” (initial venture investments), examining first financings by founder gender over time, by industry, and across U.S. metropolitan areas. Outcomes for women-founded companies versus non-women-founded firms are also compared.

This article was published in Open Source Business Resource. With data from successful founders of high-tech companies, we identify traits common to large majorities of them and any gender differences in those traits. There are few. Further, we identify criteria that might lead to gender imbalance among successful founders by comparing similarities and differences in the gender distribution of these traits among the general population and among successful founders.

This resource provides tips mid-career technical women can use to advance their careers.

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Use this resource to help you practice ways to interrupt bias in real-life situations.

Check out the most compelling statistics on women's participation in computing on a single page.

Whether or not an organization will fully benefit from diversity depends on how its members answer the questions, “What do we do with this diversity? Why do we want a diversified workforce?” Organizations must explicitly address these questions if they are to prevent diversity efforts from backfiring and if they are to reap the oft-touted benefits of better performance and productivity. Three organizational diversity paradigms are presented along with the assumptions and practices, pros, and cons of each.

By removing time and location constraints, e-mentoring allows women to connect with many more women than face-to-face mentoring permits. It can also promote more open mentor-protégé communication by limiting status differences.

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Sexism has measurably harmful effects, but sexist behavior can be minimized. Instructors and supervisors can practice zero tolerance and facilitate positive peer interactions, and they can provide highly visible leadership, policies, and procedures that go beyond legalities to explicitly denounce sexism.

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