Companies often bemoan the lack of highly trained data scientists up for grabs on the job market. The field is young, and universities are just beginning to offer data-specific training. Perhaps part of the problem is the bleeding of one cohort of would-be data scientists: Women who find the field hard to advance in for a number of reasons.

Karmen Leung, cofounder of the Women in Big Data Forum, believes this is indeed a reality. She talked with Sam Kahane (@Sam_Kahane), from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during the IBM DataFirst Launch event in New York. “We started it in June of last year, and basically our mission is to get together as a group of women and create a more embracing and inclusive environment for women in tech,” she said.

Leung related a story she frequently hears from women who did a stint in big data and dropped out. “One of the things we realized is that a lot of the women who were initially in the field got very quickly discouraged by how male dominated it is,” she said.

High-tech hands on deck

With the help of some of the biggest names in tech, WiBD seeks to turn this situation around.

“We started this initiative along with Intel, SAP, Cloudera, Hortonworks, and I’m presently from IBM,” Leung said. “And so it’s a bunch of companies coming together, agreeing on the same goal and mission and objective, and wanting to give women a more welcoming and embracing environment.”

Data-dotting the map

“We have a huge presence, mostly on the West Coast, because a lot of companies are founded in California, but we’re trying to migrate that over to the East Coast, and we’re opening more communities in New York and New Jersey and Boston as well,” Leung said.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the IBM DataFirst Launch event.

Photo by SiliconANGLE