When entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa first wrote an article in 2010 censuring Silicon Valley for its gender problem–specifically its lack of women problem–he wasn’t expecting the hostile response he’d get. « I believed it to be the greatest meritocracy—the most open, inclusive, and diverse place on Earth. That was until I came to the Valley and attended my first TechCrunch conference. It felt as if I had entered the “Twilight Zone”—a parallel universe with strange happenings. My shock was that there were practically no women on stage. When I looked, I realized that all of Silicon Valley is like this—almost no women in leadership positions. And no blacks or Hispanics. I was just absolutely shocked at the crude, childish behavior of the boys’ club » he said. That was in 2010.

Since then, the gender ratio has yet to make any significant progress toward balancing out. There’s a small, but noticeable bright side. Wadhwa said that in recent years, the Valley has started to acknowledge the issue, and some companies have taken constructive steps toward improvement. During this time he researched the problem extensively and crowd-created a book about the challenges that women have faced and how they are surmounting them.

Today this book “Innovating Women: The Changing Face of Technology » is launched! Hailed by Foreign Policy Magazine as a “Top 100 Global Thinker,” professor, researcher, and entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa, alongside award-winning journalist Farai Chideya, set out to collect anecdotes and essays from global leaders, sharing how their experiences in innovative industries frame the future of entrepreneurship.

With interviews and essays from hundreds of women in STEM fields, Innovating Women offers fresh perspectives on the challenges that women face, the strategies that they employ in the workplace, and how an organization can succeed or fail in its attempts to support the career advancement of women.

Read the full article published on Wall Street Journal  « Part 1 – Inside Silicon Valley’s Boys Club »

Read more about the book on http://innovatingwomen.org