In an increasingly technology-driven world and a rapidly changing economic environment, software engineering innovation and creativity cannot be cherished to its full potential if it is formed by homogeneous expertise. More so within the software engineering community, which needs to increasingly encourage innovation across boundaries. In this context, a question often comes up - Why do women choose particular interests, study programs and careers as alternative to software engineering? What are the triggers and benefits of these alternatives that software engineering is lacking? In this talk, I share findings from a recent questionnaire study, revealing the frustrations that women feel along their way to software engineering, whether they have stayed in, or have dropped out and are trying to re-establish the connection later. After identifying the frustrations, which all seem to be preventable, I will share a story of a non-profit organization, called Czechitas, which started with a simple idea of bringing tech closer to girls and girls closer to tech, and has over the past eight years transformed into a major social change in the Czech Republic, influencing over 30,000 women towards software engineering education and career.

Bara Buhnova is an Associate Professor and Vice-Dean at Masaryk University (MU), Faculty of Informatics (FI MU) in Brno. Following her research career in Germany and Australia, she now leads multiple research teams at Faculty of Informatics MU (software architecture, trust management) and Czech CyberCrime Centre of Excellence C4e (critical infrastructures). She is a Steering Committee member (and past chair) of the International Conference on Software Architecture (ICSA) and has been involved in organization of numerous leading conferences (e.g. in OC of ICSE, ESEC-FSE, ASE). She acts as a reviewer and (guest) editor in multiple journals (e.g. IEEE TSE, Springer EMSE, Elsevier SCP, Elsevier JSS, Springer SoSyM, Wiley SME), and is member of the IEEE TSE Review Board. Next to her academic activities, she is the chair of the Association of Industrial Partners at FI MU (with 30+ companies), and is a Co-Founding and Governing Board member of Czechitas, a non-profit organisation aiming at making IT skills more accessible to youth and women (with 30,000+ graduates).