The Ada Scotland Festival brings together partners involved in addressing the issue of gender balance in Computing Science education in Scotland. Following a successful launch last year, the Festival will return in October this year, featuring partners including Morgan Stanley, Scottish Government, dressCode, Skills Development Scotland, Barclays, Student Loans Company, The Data Lab, and many more.

This year’s launch event will take place online on 11 October, with a welcome from Jamie Hepburn MSP, Minister for Higher Education and Further Education, Youth Employment and Training. The launch event will also feature a keynote from the hugely inspiring Liz Dighton of Boroughmuir High School, a student panel, and the launch of a number of exciting competitions. The Festival runs for two weeks, and will include talks, workshops, and more from our partners.

For more details, please visit the Festival website at https://ada.scot/

The Festival was founded by the School of Computing Science’s Dr Matthew Barr, to address the significant gender imbalance in Computing Science education and, ultimately, the tech sector. That imbalance may be seen in the number of girls studying Computing Science at school, which is currently almost 80% lower than it was in 2000. Furthermore, only around one in five Computing Science university students are female, with a similar proportion of women working in tech in Scotland.

The Ada Scotland Festival is supported this year by VeryConnect and the Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate, with further sponsors to be announced.

First published: 17 September 2021

<< 20 September 2021


Ada Scotland Festival website