New college in north London 'will boost women in tech sector'

A new college opening in London aims to boost the number of women inventing apps, launching start-ups and writing code.

Ada College, named after the world’s first computer programmer Ada Lovelace, plans to smash the stereotype that only men work in the technology industry.

Its patron, lastminute.com founder Baroness Lane-Fox, said the proportion of women in the tech sector is worse than in Parliament, at about 17 per cent. Of these, fewer than one in 10 are in leadership positions.

Ada College will open in Tottenham Hale in September — the first new further education college in 23 years. It wants at least 20 per cent of its 100 sixth-formers to be female — currently 12 per cent registered for September are.

Tom Fogden, co-founder and dean, said increasing the number of women in tech was vital because of the big skills gap, with about 100,000 tech and IT jobs unfilled last year.

He added: “There are very few strong role models, unlike medicine and law where there’s lots of TV programmes with strong female characters. What we have is Silicon Valley. But when you meet people at Silicon Roundabout there are lots of interesting and diverse people there.”

All students at Ada College will take a BTEC in computer science, learn two programming languages and do an extended project. This could include creating an app, a website or a business which the college could help by providing office space and advice.

It has invited girls from local schools to visit fashion firm ASOS.com. A-levels such as English will also be on offer — Mr Fogden said it was important to create “well rounded individuals, not what people perceive someone in IT might be like — sitting in their bedrooms tapping away.”

The state-funded college will also offer apprenticeships with Queen Mary University, and industry partners have helped design its curriculum. Founding partners are IBM, Deloitte and King, the maker of Candy Crush.

Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) worked on Charles Babbage’s early mechanical computer and wrote the first algorithm intended for a machine.