Dot Diva

The purpose of the Dot Diva initiative is to create an exciting and attractive image of computing for high school girls, ages 13-18. A nationwide survey we conducted revealed that not only do girls think of computing as “boring” and “hard,” but they believe it fails to deliver two crucial values: “working with others” and “making a difference in other people’s lives.” Our mission is to transform the negative perception of computing shared by the vast majority of high school girls.

Our research shows that girls see the Dot Diva concept as strong women who can change the world using computer science. The Dot Diva initiative also is meant to be a community that girls can identify with and feel they belong to.  Dot Diva takes the approach that being cool and loving computing aren’t mutually exclusive.

Dot Diva  is managed by WGBH, a leading producer of television and non-broadcast educational media, and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s oldest and largest educational and scientific computing society. It is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.