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I would like to begin a discussion today about the future of our global economy and society. Specifically, I'd like to talk about women, and the role women will play in transforming our global economy and society over the next decade. I also want to share some thoughts on the role women will play in helping transform The Coca-Cola Company over the next decade and beyond.

I think there's another way of looking at this as well -- one that goes beyond national comparisons. In fact, I would say that the real drivers of the "Post-American World" won't be China... or India... or Brazil -- or any nation for that matter. The real drivers will be women. Women entrepreneurs. Women business, political, academic and cultural leaders. Women innovators.

The truth is women already are the most dynamic and fastest-growing economic force in the world today. Women now control over $20 trillion dollars in spending worldwide. To put that into context -- that's an economic impact larger than the U.S., China and India economies combined. But there's so much more to the story.

I am very curious as to why the number of women pursuing engineering degrees has effectively stayed the same, while the number of women attending college grows by about 20,000 each year. At the same time, I think it’s fair to say that engineering as a profession, and technical professions in general, have become less stigmatized as exclusively male. So it’s a bit discouraging to see that the number of women pursuing a career in this field has basically stagnated. And I am at a loss to explain why. What do you think?

Our experience suggests a different approach, one we call Building New Clubhouses. Instead of trying to fit people into existing engineering cultures, it may be more constructive to try to spark and support new cultures, to build new clubhouses. Our experiences have led us to believe that the problem is not so much that communities are prejudiced or exclusive but that they're limited in breadth--both intellectually and culturally. Some of the most revealing research in diversity in STEM found that women and other minorities don't join STEM communities not because they are intimidated or unqualified but rather because they're simply uninterested in these disciplines. One of our current research goals is thus to question traditional disciplinary boundaries and to expand disciplines to make room for more diverse interests and passions. To show, for example, that it is possible to build complex, innovative, technological artifacts that are colorful, soft, and beautiful. We want to provide alternative pathways to the rich intellectual possibilities of computation and engineering. We hope that our research shows that disciplines can grow both technically and culturally when we re-envision and re-contextualize them. When we build new clubhouses, new, surprising, and valuable things happen. As our findings on shared LilyPad projects seem to support, a new female-dominated electrical engineering/computer science community may emerge.