25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women

I was at a Perl conference last year and one of the training companies had a short presentation on this very thing, with similar numbers. Their training classes for Perl were around 40/60 like you've seen in industry but attendance to conferences and participation upstream was more like 5/95. They were trying to advertise and get more people so that conference participation more closely reflected the reality of the community.

I don't think that many people understand how much of an outsider, how uncomfortable and awkward it is to be the one who is obviously different (gender, race, etc.), how that discourages participation and how encouraging people to be role models can make an environment friendlier and encourage participation.