What can I do to increase the ratio of women in CS/Engineering? As the parent of a teenage boy and pre-teen girls here is what I do/can do. Start/Coach/Mentor

What can I do to increase the ratio of women in CS/Engineering? As the parent of a teenage boy and pre-teen girls here is what I do/can do. Start/Coach/Mentor a FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Team for your teenager. I coach an FTC team. Start/Coach/Mentor a FIRST Lego League (FLL) Team for your pre-teen kids. I am in the process of forming an FLL team. Have them recruit their friends/classmates into the team. It can be a mixed gender team or all girls team. Training to compete in these events force you into being part of a team, apply STEM principles learned in school into actual practical engineering applications. Build Robots and have fun doing so. The FLL teams eventually feed into FTC or FRC teams. I think this will give them very early experiences into what engineering is all about and give them the confidence to take up these streams in later life. What is important is that at the earlier ages they are not yet peer pressured into gender specific expectations and is exposed to these topics in a positive way.