Opening eyes - and doors - for women

Networking helped Susie Kleis, of Weta Digital, to get her start at the award-winning special effects company. Picture / Mark Mitchell

A ten-fold increase in female computer science students in Germany is being used as a model in New Zealand.


After the 1997 Informatika conference in Bremen, the number of female students in the subject rose from 4 per cent to 40 per cent.



Annika Hinze said increasing the number of women in IT was therefore the goal of the first Pan-Pacific Computing Women Congress held last week at the University of Waikato.



Hinze, a computer science lecturer at the university, said women accounted for about 25 per cent of computer science students there and too many did not continue their studies or start a computer-related career.

"There are more men than women so it's just harder to get into, and in a way there is a kind of male-dominated working environment," she said.

"You need to have enough women so that more women will come along, which makes it a bit complicated to get there."

Hinze said the conference gave women the chance to network, expand their computer skills and build confidence.

"It's really important they have role models; that they see other successful women working in IT or computer science.

"Since there are barely any women, that's really hard for them," she said.

One of the things the conference provided was the chance to see other successful women, hear their stories and realise that you could do what they did.

About 50 women attended the conference, taking part in courses in software engineering, project management and robotics.

A range of evening lectures, open to the public, included a discussion on the role of Maori women in IT, and technology in film-making.

Weta Digital assistant technical director Susie Kleis gave a behind-the-scenes look at the visual effects used in The Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King and talked about how she became part of the award-winning special effects company.

Kleis, a former Unitec performing arts school student, learned the importance of networking by making a contact at an industry conference that helped her to land the job at Weta.

She said other speakers noted that the number of women in IT decreased every year.

"We need to build that back up and we need to start somewhere and we need to start now."

Kleis said there was a "good enthusiastic vibe" at the conference, which was "very energising".

Those sentiments were echoed by Hinze, who said that during the keynote speeches people could see something exciting was going on.

She said a pilot study would gather detailed information on women in computer-related industries.

The conference was supported and funded by a group of organisations, including Waikato University, the Royal Society of New Zealand and Women in Technology.