That decline is indicative of an ongoing downward spiral. "One of the main reasons why young women say they leave computer science," says Hofstra's Valerie Barr, "is that they don't feel it's relevant. It's really hard to get female students to understand that computer programming is relevant to their lives. But if we can point to a half-dozen projects around the country that are completely relevant to women's lives, then that will make a big difference."

That's what makes this Santa Clara workshop -- and Hewlett-Packard's recent $2 million gift -- so important to Borg's Institute, whose virtual development center will support sites at universities around the country. Local women will attend workshops to brainstorm technologies and products that will be useful to them and to their families. Engineering and computer-science students will develop ways to turn those ideas into actual products. The Institute will use the Web to network with different universities, in order to share ideas and resources.

"Nothing more powerfully draws young women into this field," says Borg, "than knowing that what they're doing is deeply connected to the lives of real people. That's why we're trying to change the rules of the game to the rules that we want to play by. I'm neither interested in creating 'female' technology nor in identifying a new niche. I want to expand the way we technologists think about what we do and how we do things. I want to make products that are more useful to more people."

Katharine Mieszkowski (katharinem@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior writer based in San Francisco. Visit the Institute for Women and Technology on the Web (www.IWT.org) or contact Anita Borg by email (borg@IWT.org).

Sidebar: From Sisters to Systers

If you're a man who's ever wondered why women congregate in ladies' rooms, or a woman who's ever been ribbed about it, then consider this: What began as a casual chat in a ladies' room 12 years ago has evolved into perhaps the world's most important network for women in computer science.

Systers traces its origins to a two-stall, two-sink bathroom at an operating-systems symposium in 1987. There, Anita Borg and a fellow attendee began talking about the fact that only 25 of the 400 conference delegates were women. Soon another female attendee came in, and another, until six women were crowded into the small room. "We wouldn't have run into each other and begun talking," Borg says, "if it hadn't been for the bathroom."

As a result of that chance gathering, Borg and her colleagues decided to invite every woman at the conference to dinner. All but two showed up. The women ranged from world-class luminaries to graduate students. From that dinner meeting grew an email list, dubbed "Systers," referring, of course, to "sisters," but also to "operating systems."

Today, more than a decade later, Systers has grown into an online community of 2,500 women from 25 countries. Its premise: You are not alone. In a profession where women are often isolated or end up working as "one of the guys," Systers has become a trusted source of support and advice and a reminder that other women in computer science are out there. It's a sounding board - a way to network and to learn from one another's experiences and to plug into a ready-made group of mentors and peers. It's also a forum for sharing job listings, posting conference announcements, and passing along news about women in the field.

But the real genius of Systers is that it's not an organization; it's a conversation -- a remarkably intimate discussion among people around the world. Members tell stories of dilemmas they're facing in their professional and personal lives and solicit advice from one another. Typical topics include ways to stay in touch with the office during an extended maternity leave, or what to do about an employer that promotes men more readily than women. "It's like a safety net," says Kathy Richardson, 37, a computer scientist at Compaq who's been on the list for six years. "Send out a message about a problem you're having, and you'll get 50 responses with perspectives that never would have occurred to you."

And these simple, personal questions can often lead to discussions about the impact that gender has in the workplace. Take, for example, one recent conversation that tackled the question of whether women technologists should volunteer to take the notes at meetings. Some participants took the position that it was too much like playing the role of the secretary in a roomful of guys. Others argued that there can actually be some subtle but important advantages to taking notes: After all, the person who takes the notes decides what gets recorded. "It can be a way of having influence, as opposed to being at the bottom of the heap," explains Robin Jeffries, 51, distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems. "Taking notes can be a way of becoming more of a power player."