Facebook and LinkedIn are looking to get more women studying computer science and engineering with an initiative aimed at having more females work in Silicon Valley.
The initiative, announced Friday, will see the two social networking giants start mentoring and support programs at colleges and other educational institutions with the goal of enrolling more female students in technology courses so they can take on more technology jobs for both companies, according to the Associated Press.
The announcement follows 30 years after the percentage of women enrolled in undergraduate computer science programs peaked, with 35 percent in 1985. Only 17 percent of students enrolled in that field now are women.
The initiative will come in the form of a new global chapter of the Lean In Circles program called the Lean In Computer Science and Engineering (CS&E) Chapter, PC Magazine reported. Lean In Circles debuted in 2013, providing small groups for women to join and regularly meet and support one another. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said over 21,500 circles have been formed in the past two years in over 97 countries and more than 300 college campuses.
"Stereotypes are self-reinforcing; computer science and engineering classes 'feel male' because they are dominated by men," Sandberg wrote on her Facebook page Friday. "As one [computer science] student told me, 'There are more Davids than women in my department.'"
Women make up 31 percent of Facebook's employees, with 15 percent of all the company's staff working in tech jobs, the AP reported. Seventeen percent of LinkedIn's tech employees are women, and women make up 39 percent of the company's overall staff.
"A lot of our consumers, at least half, sometimes more, are women. We build a product that gives people a choice. We know we can't build a product for the world unless our teams reflect the diversity of the people who use the product," Sandberg said.
Sandberg and LinkedIn CEO Jeffrey Weiner hope to bring the new Lean In Circles chapter to public and private universities around the world but have yet to reveal how much money they will spend on the initiative.
Women can join the Lean In CS&E at the Circles 2.0 site, where they can sign up to an existing group or start one of their own, PC Magazine reported. Joining the chapter will provide members with information on how to share ideas, network, and work with other members.
"We believe that we can all come together to support women in these fields - we can change the numbers, change the stereotypes, and change the world," Sandberg wrote.
