It's Ada Lovelace Day - an international day of blogging to celebrate the achievements of women in technology and science.

It's an annual event, held in honour of Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace - the only child of Lord Byron and his wife Annabella and the author of the first computer programmes for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. This year, the goal is to get 3,072 people to blog about their tech heroine - but when it came to identifying a high-profile female executive from the outsourcing industry to write about, I have to admit I drew a blank.

Perhaps I'm wrong (and I'd certainly like to be corrected if I am). Perhaps the world's leading outsourcing companies are stuffed with impressive, high-flying women working at senior levels. But if they are, they're keeping quiet about it. I meet with and interview countless senior outsourcing executives every year, but looking back through my email archive, I can't find a single invitation to meet a female executive working at a worldwide level in the industry.

It's certainly true that women make up a significant of portion of the rank-and-file of outsourcing employees. Take, for example, India: in 2008, a joint study by Nasscom and the Indian Institute of Management - Ahmedabad (IIM-A), entitled 'Crossing the Digital Barrier: Leadership issues for women in the IT-BPO sector', estimated that women employees make up 42% of entry level positions in the Indian IT sector.

But it seems that these women - for various reasons - do not progress through the ranks. That same study revealed that around 50 per cent of mid-level women employees surveyed felt felt that there were no programmes related to leadership development skills targeted for women.

More recently, a survey from India's Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) threw further, depressing light on the lack of progress, as reported in 'The Hindu' newspaper. Some 773 Indian women working across a wide range of sectors were asked to rate their job satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 was highly satisfied. Criteria included communication and information flow in their organisation; their degree of motivation from their current job; the career opportunities open to them; and job security.

While women in public-sector organisations reported a satisfaction rate of 7, women in the BPO/KPO sectors reported a satisfaction rate of just 4.

Commenting on the findings, Assocham president Dr Swati Piramal said that women in the BPO/KPO sector, "feel a lack of personal growth and development, since they perceive less room in the decision-making process and less flexibility in working hours, besides pressures to perform and deliver targets."

The problem's not confined to India. And it's certainly not confined to the outsourcing industry. The technology business as a whole faces a major challenge. And - as Ada Lovelace Day seeks to highlight - far more needs to be done to inspire young women to embark on technology careers and to subsequently progress through the ranks.

So this is my challenge for Ada Lovelace Day 2011: To meet and interview the most inspiring, senior-level woman working for a global outsourcing company that I can identify over the course of the next 12 months. Any suggestions will be gratefully received!