Opportunities for Women in Computing: Perspective of Bangladesh

Abstract

This work presents a series of studies aiming to explore challenges and opportunities for women pursuing education or profession in the computing field. The work is based on the framework of Naila Kabeer considering access, agency and achievement as elements of women's empowerment. The study methods adopted included exploratory and qualitative analysis, whereas the data collection process incorporated two in-person surveys (N=120, F=85); ten one-to-one interviews (N=10, F=10); eight focus group discussions (N=46, F=34), four seminars covering more than 200 female members (N=239, F=239) and finally, two observations on more than one thousand participants of programming engagements (N=1402, F=1402); considering students, educators and other stakeholders as participants. Our research work exhibits dedicated efforts to ensure opportunities based on Naila Kabeer's framework for women in computing from Bangladesh.