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Washington Post
Camp hopes to
close tech industry gender gap by teaching girls to code
By Perry Stein
August 9
One group created a website to help sexual assault survivors. Another
launched an online forum to engage teenagers in politics. And then
there was the educational game that spewed out facts about the
environment as players progressed.
By 2020, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there will be 1.4
million computer science job openings but just 400,000 people with the
skills to fill them. Girls Who Code, a national non-profit, says girls
are on track to fill just 3 percent of those jobs. The growing
organization hopes to close this gap, and it has provided coding
instruction to more than 10,000 high school girls in camps and
after-school programs nationwide since its founding in 2012.
Kristin Marshall, 15, experienced the excitement and energy of coding
that the organization hopes others will see when they use their new
skills to make something tangible.
“It's amazing,” Kristin said, explaining how she used coding to launch
a website that will help users find the proper make-up for their skin
type. “We’ve been working on this for two days and we literally just
got it a few minutes ago, and it was the best feeling.”
The D.C. camp, which drew 120 teens this year from the city and its
Maryland and Virginia suburbs, is free for all students to attend.
Corporate sponsors, including BSA The Software Alliance and Lockheed
Martin pay for staff salaries and field trips. Georgetown University
donates space for the camp in its downtown continuing education
building.
“I am firmly of the view that if we have more girls coding, and more
girls working in software development, that our coding will be more
innovative, more creative and more secure,” said Victoria Espinel,
BSA’s CEO. “By the time these girls have gone through the seven weeks,
they have learned how to build websites, they’ve created apps, they’ve
made robots dance.”
Throughout the seven-week course, the students took fields trips to
Capitol Hill and Symantec Corporation, a cybersecurity firm. Female
speakers from Microsoft, IBM and NASA also came to the classes to share
their experiences.
“Coding was never something that was a train of thought for me because
I always wanted to be a psychologist,” said Willitta Cooper, a rising
junior from Montgomery County. “But now I see how I can use coding in
that by creating programs for kids.”
The program culminates with students breaking into small groups and
creating websites, apps and programs of their own from scratch. The
groups had about a week to complete their projects. Teachers and
teacher aides, who are primarily female college students studying
computer science, are on hand to help. Students learned how to code in
various languages, including JavaScript, CSS and Python.
“The hardest part was just making our project into an app because we
didn't learn the languages of an app,” said Rachel Kondrat, 17, who was
part of the team that made the make-up app. “So we spent a lot of time
learning the language. Now, we’re excited to get to the aesthetics of
it.”
Students could choose to create a website or app on any topic they
wished. They will present the final product during a graduation
ceremony this week.
“We're the next generation, so why not start now to make changes,” said
Riittisha Choudhary, a 16-year-old who was part of a team that created
PoliTeens!, a forum and call to action for teens who feel voiceless in
the political process.
Read this article with photos and more at The Washington Post
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