WIT comes of Age: The Successful Story of the Women in Information Technology Workshop

Luciana C. C. Salgado; Mirella M. Moro; Aleteia Araujo; Renata V. de Figueiredo; Claudia Cappelli; Fabiola Nakamura; Thalia S. de Santana

doi:10.5753/jbcs.2025.4506

Authors

Luciana C. C. Salgado Universidade Federal Fluminense https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1207-6021
Mirella M. Moro Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0545-2001
Aleteia Araujo Universidade de Brasília https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4645-6700
Renata V. de Figueiredo Universidade Federal da Paraíba https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6162-5889
Claudia Cappelli Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1699-3492
Fabiola Nakamura Universidade Federal do Amazonas https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8251-3202
Thalia S. de Santana Instituto Federal Goiano https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1899-4819

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5753/jbcs.2025.4506

Keywords:

Gender Equality, Women in Information Technology, WIT, Digital Girls Program

Abstract

Having more women in Computing, Information Technology, and Hard Sciences is a pressing matter that has been around for at least three decades. This article presents a success story about WIT (Women in Information Technology), an event part of the CSBC (Brazilian Computer Society Congress). It was created 18 years ago as an open space to discuss gender equity issues in Computing and is currently organized by Programa Meninas Digitais – PMD (Digital Girls Program). In this article, we present the impact of WIT within the Brazilian Computing community. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were carried out over data recorded throughout this period. The results show WIT’s growing number of participants, citations to published papers, and submissions over the years prove its success. So, WIT was born as an embryo, then grew, matured, and created a personality. Today, upon reaching adulthood, it inspires thousands of women to begin working in computing or to thrive in it. WIT has also shown men that society benefits when diversity and respect exist for all minorities, especially women in Computing.

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