This year’s Lemelson-MIT Prize winner discusses grassroots ways for boosting the number of women in technology and business.
I have a confession to make: I’ve been living under a rock.
I’ve actually been busy under here — running a bioengineering lab
at MIT, starting companies, teaching, consulting, being a mom. But I’ve been so
focused on keeping all the balls in the air that, until recently, I hadn’t
noticed that women typically aren’t the ones starting technology companies.
To be fair, I had recognized that:
• Girls choose engineering less often and drop out of engineering
disproportionately (the so-called “leaky pipeline”).
• The percentage of women computer science majors peaked 30 years
ago.
• The higher I climb, the fewer other women there are at the table
with me.
I’ve also seen progress in gender equity
in higher education. I just didn’t realize until recently that the technology industry
is light years behind.
In case you’ve also been under a rock, here are some numbers that
I found truly astonishing. Women lead only 3 percent of tech startups, account
for only 4 percent of the senior venture partners funding such startups and
represent only 5 percent of the founders, advisors and directors at MIT
technology spinoffs.
Are you as shocked as I was? What if I tell you that more than 50
percent of students in some MIT undergraduate science majors are women — and
that’s been the case for almost 20 years? Where do these talented women go, and
what are the implications of that drain?
If we believe that entrepreneurship is a fundamental engine of
progress, that it is a path to getting ideas into the world, then what does it
mean for our society if the ideas that germinate in the minds of all those
young women rarely turn into companies with products? (By the way, women-led
private tech companies have 12 percent higher revenue and 35 percent higher
return on investment than those led by men, according to the Kauffman
Foundation. This shouldn’t have to be true to make us care, but it actually
is.)
The Lemelson-MIT Prize is an award for invention, for making
discoveries useful through commercialization, and for inspiring the next
generation. As the 2014 recipient, I am truly honored and grateful to the many
people who have contributed to our collective track record using
miniaturization tools to impact human health.
Here are three things that made a difference for me:
Great expectations: My biggest fan and mentor has
always been my dad, himself a serial entrepreneur. When I became a professor,
he had mixed feelings about me climbing the ivory tower. To encourage me, he
asked one simple question: “When will you start your first company?” (As it turned out, I started my first company
within five years. Since then, my students and have founded 10 companies
between us.)
Microclimate: Many have noted the chilly
climate for women in engineering. I’ve been extraordinarily lucky. Of my
college tribe of girlfriends, four of us are now successful entrepreneurs. My
best friend is among that 4 percent of women venture capitalists; in fact, she
was named one of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women. I’m fortunate to work alongside
female founder colleagues, MIT’s Technology Licensing Office, and the
ever-inspirational Professor Robert Langer. Indeed, my microclimate is actually
pretty warm.
Men who believed in me: Much has been written about
visible role models for women. I try to be one, even when it’s hard to put
myself “out there.” Along the same lines, I appreciate having had a working mom
who was a trailblazer, having been one of the first women in India to receive
an MBA. However, it’s worth noting that the people in my life who have seen
more for me than I saw for myself, who believed in me and promoted me, were
mostly men, including my graduate advisor, my first investor, and my husband.
The truth is that changing the face of technology requires the involvement of
men who care about it.
I will donate some of the prize money to the MIT Society of Women
Engineers. This organization runs fabulous outreach programs designed to keep
young girls interested in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and
math). I also look forward to supporting a program for women’s entrepreneurship
in MIT’s upcoming Innovation Initiative.
I hope other institutions will follow suit and such initiatives
spread as quickly and far as the ideas set forth in the gender equity report
championed by MIT’s beloved former president Charles Vest. I encourage you to
also do your part: If you believe strongly in a talented woman you know, why
not ask her when she will be starting her first company? It could be just the
kind of great expectation that makes a real difference.
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