Communications of the ACM
No Boys Allowed: Girls Who Code Takes on Gender Gap
Fifteen-year-old high school student Ramya Nagarajan took part in Girls Who Code's summer program at Facebook.
Credit: Facebook
The nonprofit Girls Who Code's summer program has grown from 20 girls in one classroom in 2012 to 380 girls in classrooms at 16 companies across the country. "I want to give girls the opportunity to be the next Mark Zuckerberg," says Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani. "I won't be satisfied until I get every company in America to sign up and until I reach every girl in America."
Women make up half of the U.S. workforce but hold just 25 percent of the jobs in technical and computing fields. "We need programs explicitly about girls coding. We need to flip the switch, and I think Reshma is doing that," says Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, who has been a major supporter of the Girls Who Code program.
The curriculum was designed by educators, engineers, and entrepreneurs to get girls interested in coding. At the end of a seven-week crash course, the girls develop a project and pitch it to engineers. "Whether it's clean water or obesity, these girls see a problem they are facing or that their family is facing and they try to solve it," Saujani says.
From USA Today
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