SEATTLE — Free rent and groceries were selling points, but college freshman Aishwarya Mandyam was more excited about the chance to connect with like-minded women when she moved into the eight-bedroom house offered up by a Seattle software startup.
“There’s inspiration. There’s tech support,” said the computer science major who is interested in a career that combines medicine and technology.
Ms. Mandyam and seven other women are sharing a 3,100-square-foot home, rent-free, blocks from the University of Washington.
TUNE, a software startup that provides technology for marketers, is paying the rent for the house with the goal of creating a supportive community for university women interested in computer science and technology.
It’s the latest effort to get more women into the male-dominated industry.
Women make up more than half of the nation’s work force, but they play a small role in inventing technology, according to the National Center for Women and Information Technology.
Efforts like the TUNE-sponsored house and numerous other initiatives are trying to increase the number of women interested in the field.
Organizations such as Girls Who Code, a national nonprofit, are introducing more high school girls to computer science.
Women-only training programs such as Hackbright Academy in San Francisco and Ada Developers Academy in Seattle are also teaching women coding and other technical skills.
“There is definitely a momentum, but I would caution that it’s not going to be solved immediately,” said Elizabeth Ames, a senior vice president at Anita Borg Institute in Palo Alto, Calif.
“There are some real challenges and it will take time.”
While there’s a lot of emphasis on increasing the pipeline, more work has to be done to address the barriers that women run into later in their careers, she added.
University of Washington, which is not involved in TUNE’s housing program, has been closing the gender gap in its computer science program.
Last June, 31 percent of its computer science undergraduate degrees were awarded to women, more than twice the national average.
Nationwide, 14 percent of computer-science college graduates were women in 2014, according to a Computing Research Association survey.
“There’s no silver bullet. You have to do lots of little things all the time,” said Ed Lazowska, a University of Washington professor of computer science and engineering.
The university has introduced K-12 students and teachers to computer science through summer camps.
A seminar explores the role of women in computer science, and about 40 percent of the school’s teaching assistants are women.
Megan Hopp, a University of Washington senior, said it was inspiring to see so many female teaching assistants when she took the intro courses.
She’s now a teaching assistant for an upper level course and makes a point to reach out to other female students to tell them to consider the field.
She had not considered computer science because she thought it was too nerdy, but her older brother pestered her to take the introductory course.
“I had that epiphany moment and realized how much I love it,” she said.
First Published October 24, 2015, 5:22 a.m.