In the United States, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields are hurting. You know you've got a problem when even the government is trying to solve it (as shown by the White House's Educate to Innovate initiative (Nov. 2009) and private-sector CEO engagement in Change The Equation (Sept. 2010)). Raw data clearly shows that the US awards a significantly smaller portion of science and engineering bachelor's degrees than the majority of reporting countries (NCES). Within that already meek representation, computer science stands out as a dearth among dearths.

So techies are awesome, but we aren't training nearly enough of them. Where could we possibly find more potential programmers??

The New York Times offers a classic visualization of the CS gender gap:

This visualization shows data through 2004. It has only gotten worse since then. In the US in 2008, 57% of all bachelor's degree recipients were female, but only 17% of bachelor's degrees in computer and information sciences were awarded to women. Oops. Looks like we found our missing programmers!

There are certainly plenty of underrepresented groups in computer science, but the male/female gap is by far the most severe and spans a variety of racial and socioeconomic groups, so it makes sense to address as a distinct priority.

As recent as a few weeks ago, a dedicated Women In Tech panel at TechCrunch Disrupt established that everyone knows women are underrepresented in tech (especially tech startups), but left viewers wanting when it came to solutions. A few panel members noted that what we could really use is more women studying computer science or learning to program. I wholeheartedly agree.