I understand that this was the result of a "high-level dialogue" (whatever that means) among few (how many?) people. This reminds me of the "the Emperor of China nose length" problem http://imaginatorium.org/stuff/nose.htm Discussion among a limited group of people is not guaranteed to give you the "truth," in this case the conclusion is maybe more the result of the preconception of the participants, rather than the real motivations behind low woman participation in ICT. In this case the best solution (although not easy to implement) would be to ask directly to young women: "Are you interested in an ICT carrer?, If yes, why? If no, why not?" My personal (limited, I admit it) experience with my high-school female co-students, was that most of them were not interested in technical stuff, telling them about the latest program for C-64 was the most efficient algorithm to get them bored. If you say that personal interest does not matter and that they should be attracted by the career opportunities in a field that they do not like, let me beg to disagree: I had enough negative experiences about people that do their work only for money, rather than for passion. On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 10:45 AM, Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer@xxxxxx> wrote: > On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 10:39:56AM +0200, > Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer@xxxxxx> wrote > a message of 13 lines which said: > >> I also note that the "prominent women from the technology industry" >> invited by the IUT > > s/IUT/ITU/ of course.