A lot has been written lately noting the lack of women in technology. According to an article published in the New York Times, entitled "Why So Few Women in Silicon Valley", only 6% of the top technology companies are currently led by women. It's a worrying statistic but one that is changing. More than ever before, women are innovating and making giant strides in technology.

According to a report issued from Illuminate Ventures, women led firms are the fastest growing sector of new venture creation in the U.S.

We're amidst an ongoing change - it may not be dramatic or accompanied by street demonstrations, but it's happening. 

It is a shift - a shift that is still working its way through culture. A shift that is certainly deserved of some fanfare and a shift that would benefit greatly from increased visibility. The more visibility we can give to existing role models the more interest that will emerge from our younger generations. Given the historical oppression of women (let us not forget that women were not in fact "persons" under the law in North America until 1920) and the cultural ramifications facing women for decades following, it's only a recent shift.

It's a redefinition that arguably started in the 1990s with the likes of Carly Fiorina, Marissa Mayer & Meg Whitman. It's a trend carried forward by Caterina Fake, Rashmi Sinha & a new generation of women founding new companies along with women like Sheryl Sandberg who are steadily making inroads at the C level of top technology firms.

It's an evolution that continues and will radically change our future.

Truth is, women entrepreneurs are at the helms of some the hottest tech companies.

How many people have tested the predictability accuracy of Hunch? The hot startup getting a lot of buzz the past few weeks is the brain child of Caterina Fake, the founder of one the internet's most popular photo-sharing platforms, Flickr.

 

Offered a company feedback via a widget on their website? Good chance that was courtesy of Get Satisfaction, a wildly popular tool co-founded by Amy Muller.

Looking for example slideshow presentations? Rashmi Sinha's SlideShare is continually the top resource to source ideas.

Register for an event? Chances are fairly good it was through Eventbrite - a platform co-founded by Julia Hartz.

Women are behind some of the top tools we use on a daily basis.

They're doing amazing research on intrinsic motivation and designing interactive platforms that capitalize on human behaviour like Amy Jo Kim the creator of ShuffleBrain and Jane McGonigal of Evoke. They're running multi-platform media empires like Melanie Notkin of Savvy Auntie or aggregating the top tools for social media like oneforty's Laura Fitton. They're pioneering new technology to facilitate visual search, like the brilliant Leila Boujnane of TinEye or creating tools to monetize the publishing industry, like Alicia Navarro of SkimLinks.

We need to appreciate the positive advances that have been made and celebrate the successes. By giving visibility to women leaders making an impact we will enable a vision of new possibilities and elicit further interest in technology from our younger generations.

We need to recognize that it's an evolution - not a revolution.