At AAAI-13, several attendees remarked that the number of women and underrepresented minorities in attendance seemed even lower than in previous years, and they started talking about what could be done. So for 2014, with the encouragement of AAAI and financial support from the CRA-W and Coalition to Diversify Computing (CDC) through the Discipline Specific Workshops program, we – Maria Gini, Adele Howe, Monica Anderson, and Andrea Danyluk – organized a set of activities aimed at increasing the number of women and members of other underrepresented groups in AI by encouraging and mentoring students and post-docs.

The CRA-W Borg Early Career Award (BECA) is named in honor of the late Anita Borg, who was an early member of CRA-W and an inspiration for her commitment to increasing the participation of women in computing research. BECA targets women who are relatively early in their careers (at most 8 years post-PhD) with the goal of encouraging active contributions to helping increase the number of women in the computer science and engineering research community. The annual award is given to a woman in computer science and/or engineering who has made significant research contributions and who has contributed to her profession, especially in outreach to women. The award recognizes researchers in both academic and industrial/government research lab settings who have had a positive and significant impact on advancing women in the computing research community while serving as exemplary role models.

In the last 10 years, the computing community has started paying more attention to the lack of gender diversity in the field. There have been myriad programs introduced to amend the problem, including awareness-raising campaigns, out-of-school and in-school courses, workshops, and camps. At the national level, there are policy movements to include computer science as a high school graduation requirement, new recruitment practices and other organizational reforms introduced at the university and industry levels, and more. Many of these movements have been evaluated, and many have shown promise that they have, or will, make a difference in their local context. However, to understand whether or not all of these interventions, taken together, have actually “moved the needle,” we need to review the longitudinal data. How have girls’ and women’s representation in computing at the various levels changed, if at all, over time? And are we seeing any positive trends?

On April 11-12, the 1st National Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) conference (http://www.wicys.net) to be held in Nashville, Tennessee, will provide an exclusive opportunity to bring together women students, faculty, professionals, and researchers in cybersecurity from academia, industry, research, and government organizations in efforts aimed at increasing the pipeline of women security professionals and improving the diversity of our cybersecurity workforce.