The number of women earning computer science degrees in the United States has fallen from 36 percent in the 1980’s to less than 20 percent today. That’s despite the growing number of software engineering jobs that have skyrocketed in the last 30 years. So why is the gender gap getting worse? Collective Idea, one of West Michigan’s leading software development consultants, along with Hope College want to explore the topic with a free screening of the documentary CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap.

The screening will take place Monday, April 18 at 7 p.m. at Graves Hall located on Hope College’s campus in Holland. It is free to attend, but RSVPs are encouraged. Both Collective Idea and the Hope College Computer Science Department worked to bring the film to West Michigan.

CODE is an award winning documentary that takes a hard look at the deficit of women and minority computer science engineers in the country. More importantly it dives into how cultural stereotypes, educational hurdles, unconscious biases and sexism play a role in the gender gap.

“Gender diversity is a big problem in our industry and we want to do all we can to address it,” said Daniel Morrison, president of Collective Idea. “We’re all a little better off when we discuss sticky issues and we hope that screening the film for our community will constructively add to the conversation.”

Digital press kit assets for CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap can be found here.

About Collective Idea

A Michigan company founded by Daniel Morrison in 2005, Collective Idea is a collection of developers, designers, marketers and makers that collaborate to craft user friendly and innovative software experiences for multinational companies, small startups and everything else in between. More at www.collectiveidea.com