Workshop: EnGendering Technology

Chairs:
- Ana M. González Ramos (GENTIC, IN3, Open University of Catalonia, Spain)
- Carina González (Computer Engineering Department, University of La Laguna, Spain).

Brief description:
EnGendering technologies aims at exploring equal participation in education, design, production and use of technologies, especially in ICT, but also demanding innovative and more inclusive research, innovation and products.
Technology and society complement each other: symbolic and cultural meanings guide the process of constructing technologies and, in reverse, they delineate new cultural images and practices. Values, social relations, and world visions become inscribed in technologies, and shape and maintain gender ideologies and identities, reproducing the idea that women are strange to the world of technology which is false. Changing the discourses, practices and values in the process of design and educational system should be the key to redefine the traditional gendered relations with technology. The aim is to achieve better ICT practices and products in order to promote positive gender impact. Gendering that creative process means participating in the design of a better common future.

A large body of research has traditionally focused on women’s exclusion from the fields of science and technology. This research points to several barriers and challenges that make women’s access to knowledge difficult, as well as jobs and a full participation of women in current technological development. However, some research has turned its attention to gender inclusion processes and its impacts. In this sense, motivations, actions and mechanisms that helped the inclusion of women in technological fields have been explored. Similarly, the impacts of gender awareness and gender inclusion in the design, development and use of new technologies have been highlighted. An increasing body of research is exploring how gender and technologies are mutually shaped in a fluid and dynamic manner. Results show that both challenges and opportunities for gender and technological transformations are difficult to understand without a multidisciplinary approach.

Topics of interest: As Engendering Technology track at Interacción 2014, this workshop is focused on all the gender aspects of the technology domain. Main topics of interest include but are not limited to:

- Gender & Human Computer Interaction (HCI).
- Design for women, designing by women
- Gender & software engineering
- Gender issues in technology design
- Women inclusion in technologies
- Gender digital divide
- Gender & video games
- Gender & Information Technology
- Gender & Science and Technology
- Cultural & symbolic dimensions of ICT
- Changing relations between people and ICT
- Gender & user-centered design methodologies
- Gendered innovations in ICT
- Women, technology and power
- Best practices on Gender and ICT
- Mentoring and experiences for attracting women to ICT studies and professions
- Gender & Digital Security and risks
- Gender & IT inclusion policies and actions

Important Dates:

Submission Deadline: May 20
Author Notification: May 30
Camera-ready papers due: Jun 15
Date of the workshop: To be confirmed
Conferences dates: Sep 07-09, 2015

Publications:

All papers accepted for the conference will be published in the conference proceedings under ISBN, on CD-ROM support, as long as the camera-ready submission, registration and copyright document have been received. The conference proceedings will be submitted for indexation by Thomson Reuters Conference Proceedings Citation Index (ISI), INSPEC, DBLP and EI (Elsevier Index). Accepted English full and short papers will be published entirely in the ACM Digital Library.
Those accepted papers written in Spanish will have to submit a 2-pages extended abstract in English to be published in the ACM Digital Library. A selection of best papers from EnGendering Technology will be proposed to be submitted as an extended version for a special issue of an international journal indexed by ISI Thomson’s journal Citation Report (JCR) to be specified later.

Conferences Submission System

Papers should be submitted electronically via the EasyChair web based submission system. Inside the EasyChair the topic “Workshop EnGendering Technology” must be selected.

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=interaccion2015

More information: http://interaccion2015.upc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/Workshop-EnGendering-Technology.pdf