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CompTIA Releases New Video Encouraging Girls to Explore IT

The video is the latest resource to come out of the IT industry group’s push to get more young girls interested in the field as a career choice. It also aims to end stereotypes of IT as being open only to men.

Close your eyes and imagine someone who works in the IT industry.

Did you picture a man or a woman? This is one of the questions a new video from the IT trade association CompTIA asks in an effort to edge out the stereotype that the IT industry isn’t a place for women.

In fact, IT is a great place for women and girls, according to the main messaging of CompTIA’s Dream IT program of which the new video is a resource.

“When it comes to career opportunities, the IT industry offers endless possibilities,” Nancy Hammervik, CompTIA’s senior vice president, industry relations, said in a statement. “But the challenge for our industry has been getting that message in front of our youth. Dream IT aims to address that challenge.”

The video is aimed at preteen and teenage girls, both groups who have little initial interest in technology careers, according to CompTIA research. Once they learn about the career choices available to them in IT, however, girls’ interest in this area tends to grow. Changing perceptions about the opportunities in IT is not easy.

“IT as a career choice has been plagued for too long by perception problems and stereotypes; that it’s a boring job, a job for geeks who prefer to work alone, that only men can succeed in IT, or that all IT jobs are at risk for outsourcing,” Hammervik said. “This view is outdated and wrong. Unfortunately it persists among many of the adults who influence our teens’ career considerations—parents, teachers, counselors and mentors.”

The new resource comes a year after CompTIA’s volunteer-led Advancing Women in IT Community announced an IT “evangelism” platform in which members visited colleges, universities, high schools, fraternities, sororities, and scouting organizations to spread the word about IT jobs.

A number of other groups have also tried to inspire more young women to enter the technology field.

Late last year, for example, the nonprofit tech-education group Code.org launched a campaign that aimed to encourage young girls to embrace and develop their coding skills by capitalizing on the popularity of Disney’s animated hit Frozen.

(iStock/Thinkstock)

Katie Bascuas

By Katie Bascuas

Katie Bascuas is associate editor of Associations Now. MORE

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