Recent study shows women’s leading role in new IT patents

Author: Isha Jain

SuperWomen in Flash has shared figures from a recent study by the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), a non-profit community founded in 2004 which is funded by the National Science Foundation. SuperWomen in Flash is the Flash Memory Summit (FMS) program that celebrates the success of women in the memory industry and encourages more young women to join this dynamic field.

NCWIT, in partnership with 1790 Analytics, has published periodic reports on gendered patterns in IT patenting, analysing records from the US Patent and Trademark Office. Below are a few highlights:

• In the last five years, approximately 10% of US IT patents included women as inventors.
• In the US, IT patenting overall increased almost 17-fold between 1980-84 and 2016-2020.
• Patents with woman inventors increased 56-fold from 1980-84 to 2017-2020, even as the percentage of women employed in IT either remained flat or decreased slightly.

In addition:

• In 2022, 27% of professional computing occupations in the US workforce were held by women.
• In 2022, 23% of total tech C-suite positions in Fortune 500 companies were held by women.

Starting in 2018, FMS has presented a SuperWomen in Flash Leadership Award to showcase the achievements of women in the traditionally male-dominated memory industry. Past recipients include:

• Amber Huffman, Former Intel Fellow and Board Chair of the NVMe Working Group
• Calline Sanchez, IBM Vice President, WW Systems Services & Technical Universities
• Barbara Nelson, WekaIO, VP Cloud
• Dr Yan Li, Western Digital, VP of Engineering

“The data infrastructure memory industry, and tech overall, is a highly dynamic space, one where creativity, attention to detail, and an innovative approach can make a significant difference to the development and adoption of new technologies,” says Camberley Bates, VP and Practice Lead, The Futurum Group, and Founder of the SuperWomen in Flash Leadership program. “It’s an ideal space for women to build rewarding and successful careers, and through SuperWomen in Flash, we aim to attract more women to the memory industry.”

Click here for latest data centre news.