Wanted: More Women Inventors to Save the World

With such great need around the world for clean drinking water, safe housing, renewable energy, disaster relief, biomedical devices, and so on, we need inventors to build solutions and bring them to market. Unfortunately, it turns out that we might be missing out on talented young men, and even more women, who would be--but who are not--considering careers as inventors.

Young Women Do Not See Themselves as Inventors

Few of the young women, ages 16 - 25 who consider themselves creative, the characteristic they most associate with inventors, would also describe themselves as inventive; the numbers are somewhat better for young men. This is according to the latest annual Lemelson-MIT Index that gauges Americans' perceptions about invention and innovation. "Further demonstrating inventive traits, young women [42%] show a strong affinity for math and science," according to the Lemelson-MIT Program website. "The results reveal young women's innate interest in inventive fields; however ... less than ten % earn their college degrees in technical majors such as computer and information sciences, engineering or math. This proportionately small group indicates a need to educate women about translating their skills and academic interests into inventive careers."

For continuation and LESSONS FROM THE FIELD, see Fast Company here...http://bit.ly/geBnt0

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