27.09.2008, Turkish Daily News

Professor Receives Global Tech Award

Accepting an international award for innovation in technology, Reyyan Ayfer, chair of the computer technology and programming department at Bilkent University, will attend the world's largest technology conference for women in Colorado this week.

The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI), based in Palo Alto, California, announced this week that Ayfer was one of three recipients of the Anita Borg Change Agent Awards for 2008.

The Institute called Ayfer "a highly respected scientist who is dedicated to addressing the challenges of advancing a complex society as Turkey." Calling her "a true pioneer", they said her participation "will help bridge women technologists in the United States and abroad."
With no NGOs in Turkey supporting women in science or technology, Ayfer has set out to make careers in technology more appealing and accessible to young women.

The ratio of women in computing is 20 percent in higher education, Ayfer told the Turkish Daily News Friday, a ratio that is far above the world average. Interest among girls dropped off when it became a male-dominated toy in the home, she said. "Boys come to class ahead of girls because they have been playing lots of games, increasing their memories and buying the latest software."

"We select a career early on in Turkey," she said. Many high school students determine their future career path when they are 17 or 18 at the time of the university entrance exam. Unlike a liberal arts education, the university system is more like a graduate program in the way that it focuses on one course of study.

There is not much difference in salary in IT, she said. "I think it is a matter of misunderstanding the field," adding that selecting a career in computing is not very appealing for girls. But she said it is no more difficult than medicine or law, both fields with huge ratios of women professionals in Turkey.

Forging a path for women

Founder and coordinator of BITS Bilkent Instructional Technology Support, she began helping colleagues and students across campus by running workshops and tailoring their technology to suit their specific needs. She is also Team General Coordinator and Turkish Ambassador for ACM-W.

The Innovation award recognizes a woman who has contributed significantly to technology innovation. The innovation might be creating unusual and important technology or approaching developing technology in a significantly new and innovative way, such as by bringing diverse people and experiences together in the technology creation process.

In addition, she is assistant chair of the department of computer and instructional technology for teacher education, general coordinator of the Bilkent Instruction Technology Support Team, and director of the Institutional Relations and History Unit. Through her role in the field of information technology education, Ayfer has dedicated her career to helping meet the demand for expertise in programming. She represents Turkey as an ambassador in the Association for Computing Machinery-Women and is leading students at Bilkent University who have formed the first international ACM-W Student Chapter.

Ayfer is scheduled to speak at the 2008 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Keystone, Colorado, October 1-4. The awards, underwritten by Google, honors two other women living and working outside the United States who work in their community to attract and support women in technology.