Leading The Charge: How Girls Who Code Is Helping Bridge The Gap For Women In Tech
June 9, 2015 | Focus on Women
Andrea Gonzales loves to code, and she doesn’t hesitate to tell you so. Yet
Leading The Charge: How Girls Who Code Is Helping Bridge The Gap For Women In Tech
June 9, 2015 | Focus on Women
Andrea Gonzales loves to code, and she doesn’t hesitate to tell you so. Yet the 17-year-old junior at Hunter College High School also knows that few of her friends truly get her passion for computer programming. “They think coding is, well, kinda nerdy,” said Gonzales.
Natasha Driver, a high school senior also from New York, understands what Gonzales is saying. “Up until a couple of years ago, I didn’t know anything about computers. I thought of coding as something only techie guys do,” said Driver.
Driver and Gonzales aren’t alone in thinking tech is largely a boys’ club. Ask any high school girl what she wants to major in when she gets to college, and less than 1 percent (0.3 percent) will name computer science. Yet technology and engineering are where young people are likely to find the best opportunities for economic and career advancement. In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that there will be 1.4 million new jobs in computer science by 2020, making it one of the fastest-growing categories in the already white-hot STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) sector.1
So what prompted Gonzales and Driver to learn how to program?
Last summer, each participated in the Girls Who Code (GWC) Summer Immersion Program, an eye-opening experience that changed their perspective—and their long-term goals.
The Girls Who Code Summer Immersion Program is an intensive seven-week opportunity that pairs project-based computer science education with real-world tech industry exposure and mentoring. Started in 2012 by Reshma Saujani, a former New York City Deputy Public Advocate, GWC aims to close the gender gap in the technology and engineering fields by providing computer science education to one million girls by 2020.
The idea for Girls Who Code came to Saujani while she was campaigning to become the first South Asian woman in Congress. “We were touring schools in a poorer New York City district. As I looked around, I began to notice a stark difference between boys and girls and their access to technology. I knew I had to do something to level that playing field.”
Saujani drew from her own experience in thinking about the best way to teach girls about computers. “I grew up with a lot of encou