KEY POINTS:
Encouraging teenagers to consider a career in technology is hard enough.
Even more challenging is convincing young women to join the IT workforce.
It is estimated that only a quarter of those working in IT are women, and females' lack of interest in the industry is effectively shutting out a large pool of talent which could be contributing to New Zealand's high-tech growth prospects.
But the local IT community has found a powerful cheerleader in Janina Voigt, the only female member of this year's New Zealand Imagine Cup team which competed in France.
Voigt attracted international interest when, at short notice, she was asked to become one of only two student participants in a high-powered Women in IT forum run with the technology competition.
The invitation saw Voigt join a speaking line-up which included former French Cabinet minister Claudie Haignere, who was also the first European female astronaut to visit the International Space Station, and Jan Figel, the European Commissioner for Education.
"I definitely wouldn't say I ever considered studying IT when I was younger. I had the perception that it was boring and plain, and nothing that would have excited me," Voigt told the forum.
"I had this image in my mind of geeky guys with their glasses and their laptops, programming away all day, all by themselves, and that didn't really appeal to me at all."
She studied journalism but stumbled into IT when her boyfriend (Imagine Cup teammate Louis Sayers) offered to teach her some basic computer programming.
The lesson sparked an interest which eventually led her to enrol in IT courses at the University of Canterbury and she now plans to complete a PhD in computer science.
"I guess it really turned out to be the complete opposite of what I'd expected in many ways. IT is actually a very social subject. There's lots of teamwork ... communication and teamwork are actually the most important skills in IT.
Girls love to talk and they're good at it, so they should really give it a go."
