Getting girls into IT

We live in a time of talent shortage and every industry is competing to attract the best and brightest. It's been a matter of fact that for a long time technology has ceased to attract the attention of young women. As a female in IT I can vouch for it being an exciting and satsifying career path. Yet the number of women enrolling in IT at uni is dwindling (and when I was there a few years back it was me and five other girls, so there must be one lone lady sitting in lecture theatres wondering where the sisterhood has gone). Articles on how to get girls into IT focus on encouraging young women into science and math. And while that's admirable, I don't see how that exclusively leads to a career in IT. I think it enforces a fairly dangerous stereotype. It ignores the creative and artistic side of technology. Technology is pervasive and you only have to see how girls interact communicate with one another to realise that they do love technology - they just don't associate their texting, FaceBook and MySpace-ing with a career in IT. My question for the young ladies at school now is - what tech product are you going to create that will completely alter my world - that's the kind of question that gets people excited.