Category: About us

Diversity within the computer science community is a major priority for the Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI). Its Women and Computer Science specialist group, in particular, does valuable work in this area. Diversity has also become firmly established as an important issue among the students involved in the GI. The online event series STEM Girls offers workshops for women and non-binary people, encouraging them to pursue careers in STEM while providing a safe space in which they can exchange ideas and build networks.

Initiatives such as Informatica Feminale make an important contribution to making computer science more accessible to everyone.

For this reason, the Executive Board of the Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. adopted the following recommendation as early as 1999:

“The Gesellschaft für Informatik recommends participation in the Informatica Feminale summer programme as a measure to support and promote women at universities and universities of applied sciences. It therefore asks all faculties and departments to draw their female students’ attention specifically to the summer programme, to recognise the academic certificates issued by the University of Bremen as part of the students’ respective degree programmes, and to provide financial support for their participation in the summer programme, for example by covering their travel expenses.”

Supporting students is more important today than ever, as demonstrated by the Archive of Subtle Discouragements.

This makes becoming part of a strong network all the more important. Incidentally, GI membership is free for students. Early-career professionals pay just EUR 25 in their first year of membership.

The German Faculty Conference of Informatics Faculties has awared its first Equality Prize (“Preis für herausragende Gleichstellungsarbeit”) to the Summer University Informatica Feminale of the Department of Mathematics and Informatics at Bremen University.
The awards ceremony with the laudatory speech by Professor Christiane Floyd is available as video and photos.

The aim of Informatica Feminale is the sustainable professional integration of female experts in Informatics / Computer Science and ICT, which involves:

• acknowledging equal participation of all genders in technology development
• increasing the number of women students and graduates in computing studies;
• attaining women lecturers;
• connecting women students with professionals and supporting them during the transition into the labor market;
• developing new impulses — especially for women — in Informatics / Computer Science in higher education.

The nature of our conceptual starting point is clearly professional. Our mission is to motivate women in Informatics / Computer Science to create a place of exchange for themselves and other women interested in this discipline. This includes exchange of technical knowledge as well as everyday academic and occupational issues. Informatica Feminale also allows room for personal exchange.

On our website you can get more information about the background and concept of the summer university.

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A place for experimentation and professional exchange

By initiating ‘Informatica Feminale – Summer University for Women in Informatics’ in the year 1997 we have created a room for developing and exploring new methods for gender equality in the scientific sector. The nature of our conceptual starting point is clearly professional.

Our aim is to activate women in Informatics (Computer Science) to create a place of exchange for themselves and other women interested in this discipline. This exchange is based on professional and technical topics, but also includes a personal level by means of intensive communication.

Informatica Feminale is a place for experimentation and intends to imply new impulses in Informatics (Computer Science).

Three conceptual aspects of academic education – defining curricular fundamentals, training of students and encouraging lecturers – are closely connected in this approach. They connect studying, institutional structures and practices at a university. Technical subjects are strongly influenced by male interests. With the concept of the Summer Universities we want to support women at different academic and scientific operating levels to exert influence.

We regard academic and research content in Informatics as well as structures and practices at institutions of higher education as key factors in exclusion of women in Informatics. Therefore gender equality policies should not stop at considering the teaching of professional content, but must also regard changes in academic culture in terms of changing the ambience and structure in everyday education and research at universities.
This will be a long road, but professional networking is indispensable. Informatica Feminale should create opportunities for women to strengthen their influence on different academic and scientific operating levels.

Research institutions and universities offer many opportunities to persue a career in science . A forum for positions especially oriented to women* in computer science and mathematics is the mailing list ‘frauen-inform’, which is managed and moderated at the Department of Computer Science at Hamburg University.

Weitere Informationen dazu:
https://www.inf.uni-hamburg.de/home/gender/frauen-inform.html