The calendar babes have IT

New Delhi: Women techies are not drab geeks; they are sexy enough to be calendar girls.

The Screen Goddess calendar featuring female IT workers was created by Sonja Bernhardt, an IT worker herself, to entice more women into technology-related careers, reported The Age newspaper.

Instantly a rage, the website which showcased the calendar managed 3.5 million hits worldwide in a day.

It has become the hottest debate across media, public forums and blogs and has attracted a fair deal of criticism because some of its "models" appeared partially clad.

Even a targeted denial-of-service attack from the US on Friday night was unable to shut down the website.

Bernhardt claimed that the calendar was meant to be a takeoff on glamorous actresses to slam the stereotype of the nerdy IT worker.

"We welcome debate on the calendar and the issues it raises, but our opponents should allow people to decide for themselves in an open forum, not just try to knock us down," The Age quoted her as saying.

The Australian Computer Society (ACS), a sponsor of the calendar, withdrew its support once they realised that the cover shot featured helpdesk manager Sonja Breeze, who is adorned only with rose petals.

"We were not expecting the American Beauty front cover and there were a few other shots that we didn't think were appropriate for women or a professional society, so we decided to withdraw our sponsorship," director of ACS-Women, Su Spencer, told The Age.

The need to attract more women into the IT sector has been recognised as a growing problem by companies like Google, which had trouble finding local female engineers and recently started a scholarship program to encourage them to join the industry.

"We are now taking overwhelming number of requests from women who want to be in the calendar next year," Bernhardt told The Age.

She challenged critics who slammed the project saying it merely promoted an image that one has to be beautiful to succeed in IT.

"Given that the age group of women in the calendar ranged from 25 to 60, incorporated five different nationalities, and featured women of all sizes and body shapes, I find that argument a bit of a stretch," The Age quoted her as saying.

Over 2000 copies of the calendar have already been presold across seventeen countries and the official launch is scheduled for August.

Money raised from the calendar will go to non-profit groups that encourage women to take up a career in IT.

(With inputs from Agencies)