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Teaching Girls to Code

January 11, 2017
Reshma Saujani

Reshma Saujani

Calvin College

Teaching girls to code for computing and helping to prepare them for careers as engineers will help to break down the gender gap in the world of technology, said Reshma Saujani at the 2017 January Series.

Saujani is the founder of Girls Who Code, which last year had more than 14,000 girls in the 6th through 12th grades enrolled in its programs, with a projected number of more than 50,000 taking part in 2017.

“Our clubs and summer programs are everywhere in the U.S. and involve girls from expensive private schools to Native American reservations and from homeless shelters to rural areas,” said Saujani in her Calvin College talk titled “Closing the Gender Gap in Technology.”

In her program, girls learn to build computer apps, to design websites, and to create robots of various types. In addition, she makes sure that at least half of her students are below the poverty line, and her program works to connect them with college scholarship and financial aid packages.

But it has been a battle trying to break down stereotypes that teach computing is for guys.

“I have seen hundreds of boys clamoring to be the next Steve Jobs [founder of Apple] or Mark Zuckerberg [founder of Facebook], but very few girls who want to do this,” said Saujani. “I wondered where they were in this industry shaping our electronic future.”

The gender gap in the field of technology, unlike that of medicine and law, is wide and threatens to get bigger, said Saujani.

By 2020, there will be 1.4 million jobs available in computing-related fields in the United States. The majority will be filled by engineers from other countries, where schools are far ahead in training students to work in technology.

Meanwhile, U.S. college graduates are on track to fill 29 percent of the jobs. Unless programs and efforts such as Girls Who Code can inspire and prepare more girls to enter these fields, women are projected to fill just three percent of these jobs by 2020, said Saujani.

“If we want to make sure that this glass ceiling is not growing every day, we need to crash it,” she said. “For far too long, young girls have been given the message that this field is not for them.”

Popular images of computer programmers on TV and in movies and elsewhere feature boys. The message, from parents and others, is that math and science — and especially working with computers — isn’t for girls. A T-shirt that Saujani has seen many girls wear says “I’m Allergic to Algebra.”

“These cultural things are pushing girls out of an industry that they need in order to survive financially in the 21st century,” said Saujani.

Needed is for girls to see “savvy women” who work as engineers, and, said Saujani, for girls to have the chance to learn computing in a friendly and enjoyable environment that addresses their needs and skill levels.

During an unsuccessful run for the U.S. House of Representatives seat including New York City in 2010, Saujani visited many schools and saw that few of them had computer programming classes and that, of those that did, girls were in the minority.

After her run for office, she decided in 2012 to start Girls Who Code. “We want to change the male-dominated culture,” she said. “Even as we’ve grown, we haven’t lost the magic. We are keeping and fostering a sisterhood between the girls.”

Girls Who Code recently designed and released a computer app that the girls can use to keep in touch, as well as to connect with other young women, after they have gone through the program, said Saujani.

Girls Who Code also offers field trips in which the girls visit companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Disney, allowing them to meet and interact with women who work in those organizations. Girls Who Code is sponsored by a number of software and technology companies.

In the classes, girls are encouraged to create apps for smartphones and other devices — and they have done just that. They have built apps that teach girls about their bodies, game apps dramatizing the dangers of drugs, and an interactive app that allows people to track their impact on the environment.

“We want to teach girls to be brave,” said Saujani. “We need to push them into the deep end. Too often girls are coddled and shielded. We’ve been told to stay away from things we can’t be great at.”

The goal of her organization — by gathering girls and teaching them to work with numbers and equations and to think in complex, technical ways — is to “create a generation of young girls who will be brave and willing to take great risks,” said Saujani.

“We want girls to be more conscious of what is possible for them,” she said.