Thanks for sharing this report, Robin, I shared it on LinkedIn and it has generated a lot of dialogue and attention, so I'm trying to get it out there more.
Sanjay, I completely agree that the biggest issues is with domestic women. A bit contrary to the report, I've found plenty of women from China, India, Turkey, Iran, etc. We had a call earlier this week about an academic case we are writing focused on a female protagonist for a case competition called The Case for Women. Burcu Keskin/Alabama is collaborating with us, and we had another Turkish female professor on the same call from Europe with whom we are collaborating on another case.
But to illustrate, my student was also on the call. She is a domestic woman who was a management science undergrad who had zero female professors and only one female professor in her MSA program.
Sanjay, I completely agree that offering practical examples is critical, and even more so if you can tie it to ways the organization makes a social impact. I think the response to Anne Robinson and I at Kinaxis offering universities guest lectures to illustrate how we make supply chain and analytics real indicates an interest in this area. Good for you for highlighting the practicum, which I also think is critical.
I'm not as sure about the analytics focus, because I think it makes us sound more out of touch and like all we do is BI than that it will increase interest from women.
But let's all keep pushing on this.
And needless to say, I LOVE the Girl Scouts supply chain badge. While my own scouting experience was not particularly inspiring, hopefully that badge will be.
Polly
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Polly Mitchell-Guthrie
VP, Industry Outreach And Thought Leadership
Kinaxis
Scottsdale AZ
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-14-2021 23:25
From: Robin Lougee
Subject: What's keeping women from Data Science in industry? A view from BCG & new initiative from the INFORMS Practice Section
A study from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) looked at what's keeping women from data science in industry, https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/what-keeps-women-out-data-science. The findings underscore the importance of activities that help students learn about the day-to-day jobs of practitioners.
The Practice Section is addressing this gap in part with a new webinar series, "Sustaining Outstanding Analytics Organizations" organized by Arnie Greenland, where managers talk about their organizations, the types/examples of projects that their groups work on, the skill sets of the people in their groups, and the types of people they are looking to hire.
The next speaker in the series is Erica Klampfl, Ford Motor Company this Friday (7/16) at noon Eastern - which should be fantastic! To register for the free event, visit https://connect.informs.org/practice/events/upcoming-webinars , and consider sharing this event with any student groups in your network.
thanks,
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Robin Lougee
Secretary, INFORMS Practice Section
robin.lougee@gmail.com
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