"Women hold up half the sky"
But they aren't involved in half of the decision making that matters. There are not enough women in power. By that I mean women in politics and critically today, not enough women in technology.
Technology, particularly open technology and open culture driven by technology, has changed the way the world operates. The global village is a reality thanks to the internet, thanks to open source operating systems, web servers, databases and programming languages, thanks to open network protocols and open platforms for publishing and collaboration. But the numbers of women participating in this peaceful yet powerful revolution are too few.
Women make up 2% of the open source software development community, and 9% of the ranks of wikipedia editors.
Since I was a child, I've been passionate about the participation of women in society. I questioned why it was that girls were not asked to salute the flag in assembly in primary school, I spoke about women in politics in senior high school, and this year I mounted a campaign to have an important women's journal digitised and made freely available online.
The Ada Initiative is a non profit association tackling the problems women face when participating in open technology and culture. They aim to support and promote the participation of women in ways that shape the technology, and empower them to take leading roles in our increasingly digital culture.
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Find out more about The Ada Initiative at http://adainitiative.org