Kelly Ripa is bringing women in tech to the small screen. The “Live! with Kelly” host and her husband, Mark Consuelos, will develop the upcoming book “Geek Girl Rising: Inside the Sisterhood Shaking Up Tech” as a scripted TV series for ABC, Variety reports.
Written by journalists Heather Cabot and Samantha Walravens, “Geek Girl Rising” “introduces readers to the female entrepreneurs and technologists who are building the next generation of tech start-ups, investing in each other’s ventures, upending male hacker stereotypes, and rallying women and girls everywhere to join the digital revolution,” the source summarizes. While many are aware that women are underrepresented in the tech world, fewer realize the severity of the problem. “According to information cited by the authors, just 2.7 percent of venture capital-funded companies have a female CEO, while 94 percent of venture capitalists are male and mostly white. In addition, 56 percent of women in technology drop out mid-career and only 18 percent of undergraduate computer science degree recipients today are women, which has dropped from a high of 37 percent in 1985.”
ABC Studios optioned the book, which will hit shelves May 23. Ripa and Consuelos are among the series’ executive producers.
Other upcoming projects about women in STEM fields include a biopic about mathematician and computer science icon Ada Lovelace, a Niki Caro-directed drama about DNA scientist Rosalind Franklin, and a biopic about two-time Nobel Prize-winning chemist and physicist Marie Curie directed by Marjane Satrapi. Sundance Channel is also developing “Intuition,” a limited series from Anna Ziegler focused on a female scientist.
You can still catch “Hidden Figures” in theaters. The Oscar-nominated drama is based on the true story of the brilliant African American women who played an instrumental role in the space race, and has grossed nearly $250 million worldwide on a budget of $25 million.
