NEWS
B Y K E L LY K E N O Y E R
LAUREN JEROME
HOLDS A RWIT SIGN
SURROUNDED BY
FELLOW WOMEN IN TECH
PHOTO: ATHENA DELENE
RECODING TECH
A local nonprofit supports women in
the tech workforce
edefining Women in Tech (RWIT) is a nonprofit
in Eugene that connects women with the commu-
nities and resources they need to thrive in tech
careers. Lauren Jerome is a mentor-in-residence
with RAIN Eugene (Regional Accelerator & In-
novation Network) and co-founder of Mindbox Studios, a
software and web development studio in Eugene.
Jerome organizes for RWIT, and she sat down with Eu-
gene Weekly to talk about upcoming projects, the challeng-
es women face in tech and the STEM (science, technology,
engineering, math) education pipeline.
R
What are RWIT's goals?
Our goals are to support women who are interested in
technology careers. When we started out we did a resource
guide to figure out what organizations are doing things and
how we can support them without reinventing the wheel.
So we decided that since there are a lot of programs already
focused on the K-12 students — which is important for
getting them into the whole pipeline — we would really
focus on providing more for women who are older, specifi-
cally 18 and up.
Studies show that if they haven’t gotten into STEM by
8
November 22, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
then, there’s a gap between high school and college and
people on the other side of college who are starting to get
into it then.
I’m an example of that — I studied engineering, so I did
study STEM, but it wasn’t until I got on the other side of
college that I was able to decide I wanted to get into tech
— a lot of people do that. I’m actually talking to a young
woman right now who studied biology and then decided
she was interested in coding. A lot of what I do is work-
force development, and the pipeline for candidates needs
work.
What challenges do women face in the tech field?
A lot of women in that age group have already been
missed because STEM programs aren’t really geared to-
wards them or they’re already in a career of some sort. But
a lot of times they just didn’t understand the pathways or
the pathways weren’t appealing back then.
I think the biggest challenge for a lot of women is just
imposter syndrome — wondering if they really belong.
They tend to talk themselves out of it, so seeing people
who look like them doing the same thing can help.
There are a lot of women who are either fulfilling those
roles in non-technology businesses, or even women who
are fulfilling non-tech roles at technology businesses who
will say that they’re not in tech to not be pigeon-holed.
We’re trying to break down those barriers and get more
people to just join the conversation about technology.
We’re just hoping to have a more collaborative conversa-
tion and get the community to work together.
How many women are in tech compared to men?
The numbers here in Lane County are pretty average.
It’s not just a local problem, so a lot of times people just
throw their arms up because we realize that it needs to be
a societal solution. I’d say that at most technology compa-
nies, the percentages of women are probably 25 percent
or less.
Looking at education programs, the percentage of
women enrolling is much lower than men, but drop-out
rates aren’t really that different. The problem is that there
just aren’t that many women to begin with.
I think there needs to be more of a community. If there
are small numbers of women in organizations and in edu-
cation and in our workforce, we can pull them together in
a meaningful way at the community level instead of the
organizational level and provide support that these organi-
zations just really aren’t set up to provide.
Do you have any upcoming events?
Kiki Prottsman will also be putting on an event here
on Nov. 29 called MindHack. It’s going to be a workshop
on how to cultivate a mindset of diversity and inclusion,
and how we can incorporate some of those ideas going for-
ward in our workplace. That event is not necessarily just
for women. That’s one of the ways Redefining Women in
Tech can participate — by working with organizations and
communities to break down the barriers that people don’t
realize are there to being more inclusive.
For more information on RWIT, go to redefiningwomenintech.com.