Making waves.

"Many women have a deep desire to make the world a better place and are hoping to play a role in ensuring that technology is implemented wisely and responsibly," writes Carole Stephenson, president and CEO of Lucent Technologies Canada Inc., in her introduction to Technology with Curves: Women Reshaping the Digital Landscape. The book, written by JoAnn Napier, Denise Short and Emma Smith, all experts in Canada's growing IT sector, is a celebration of the women who are breaking traditional gender barriers and driving the growth of the wired world.

Stephenson goes on to say that there are five gifts in particular that women contribute to the world of technology, all of which you will see in the women who are working in today's high-tech companies, organizations and start-ups. The first is courage, a quality that is evident in the tremendous entrepreneurial drive exhibited by women today, says Stephenson. The second is creativity. "Creative and successful businesspeople recognize a customer desire or need and devise imaginative ways to fulfil it," she adds. Customer understanding is the third. The reward for this gift is profound customer loyalty, which, as Stephenson states, is especially important to the highly competitive nature of the high-tech industry.

The fourth gift, and one that is perhaps more gender-specific than the others, is women's natural tendency to collaborate. "We're comfortable working in groups," says Stephenson. "We like to seek out the ideas and perspectives of others. We like to talk things through and we're good listeners." She goes on to emphasize that the true value of an organization exists in its knowledge capital -- the sum of all the information, ideas and brainpower that are shared by its employees. A passion for change is the fifth attribute that Stephenson believes women bring to the table. "The wired world is the perfect stomping ground for passionate change agents, as we see each time a motivated person carves out a new path or founds a start-up."

The five tech-savvy women interviewed in this month's cover story, Life in the Fast Lane, contribute these five gifts to the organizations in which they work every day. Through their roles as IT consultant, author, CIO, CEO, and COO, these women are rewriting the definition of 'job satisfaction', are driving the growth in companies that are making a difference in the world, and are paving the way for our daughters.

Kristin Doucet

Editor