Girls Who Code
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Girls Who Code (also known as GWC) is an international
nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
that aims to support and increase the number of women in
computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...
. The organization works toward closing the gender employment difference in computing. They host a seven-week Summer Immersion Program, a two-week specialized Campus Program, after school Clubs, a college club, College Loops, and a ''
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'' best-selling
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13-book series. The organization is based in New York and has programs in the United States (all fifty states), Canada, India and the United Kingdom. Girls Who Code has also released many public campaigns to raise awareness of its mission.


Summary

Girls Who Code was founded by
Reshma Saujani Reshma Saujani (born November 18, 1975) is an American lawyer, politician, civil servant, and the founder of the nonprofit organization Girls Who Code, which aims to increase the number of women in computer science and close the gender employment ...
in 2012, who came up with the idea of creating the organization during her run for the
United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
. Reshma believed that schools along her campaign route lacked female representation in computer science classrooms. The organization began under the White House Science & Technology Initiative. Girls Who Code runs programs during the academic year teaching high school girls computing skills like programming,
robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...
, and
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, with sessions including projects and trips to companies like
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and
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
. As of 2014, there were more than 1,500 Girls Who Code clubs across America, with the organization aiming to teach one million girls to code by 2020. By December 2014, three thousand students had completed a Girls Who Code program, 95% of whom stated they desired to major in computer science in higher education. According to the organization's 2021 report, there are approximately 115,000 college or post college age alumni who have completed the program. In 2019, the organization announced plans to expand to 10,000 clubs in all 50 states. In 2020, Girls Who Code launched a free 2-week virtual Summer Immersion Program in response to the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, with the program serving 5,000 girls in its first year. The organization is sponsored by several software and technology companies including
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,
Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
, and
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
, and in August 2014 received a $1 million contribution from
AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...
.


History

As of 2015, only 18% of computer science college graduates are women. Reshma Saujani participated in a
TED Talk TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...
where she spoke about the tech industry. The company announced that in 2016 the non-profit organization will be expanding to all 50 states- making it the largest computing program for girls in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. In August 2017, the nonprofit launched a 13-book series with
Penguin Random House Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, from the merger of Penguin Group and Random House. On April 2, 2020, Bertels ...
, including a nonfiction book, ''Girls Who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World'', and several fiction books. By the spring of 2018, Girls Who Code will have reached more than 50,000 girls with their computer science education programs. As of February 2021 Girls Who Code has more than 80,000 college-aged alums who are entering the workforce. Girls Who Code clubs and programs have reached more than 300,000 girls globally as of March 2021. The organization's efforts to close the achievement gender gap have resulted in several honors. Saujani was recognized for 'her vision and efforts to close the gender gap in technology. Girls Who Code alumni include Andrea Gonzales and Sophie Houser, the creators of the video game Tampon Run. In 2020, Girls Who Code updated its brand design in order to connect better with
Generation Z Generation Z (or more commonly Gen Z for short), colloquially known as zoomers, is the Western world, Western demography, demographic Cohort (statistics), cohort succeeding Millennials and preceding Generation Alpha. Researchers and popular me ...
. The new design is called "making waves" because it is based on the shape of formatted code. The indentations used for formatting code create a wave shape. This new brand update involved many different types of waves, a new color palette, a font change and a single-color logo.


Programs


Clubs

The Girls Who Code after school club program is open to middle and high school girls within the ages of 13-18. These clubs are run by college students, teachers, librarians or professionals in the technology industry. Club meeting times vary between clubs but are around 20 weeks with 2 hour meetings per week. The club curriculum is built on four foundational computer science concepts: loops, conditionals, variables and functions. The organization calls these the "core-four." Club activities consist of coding tutorials, preprofessional workshops and community building events. Girls Who Code clubs are active in all fifty states in the United States, Canada, India and the United Kingdom.


Summer Immersion Program

The Summer Immersion Program (SIP) was a seven-week in-person summer camp program offered for girls in 10th and 11th grade to introduce them to the world of coding. The program developed into a two-week virtual program due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These summer camps are based at more than 80 technology companies across the United States, including
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
,
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
,
Adobe Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for ''mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of e ...
, Prudential,
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
and
Sephora Sephora is a French multinational retailer of personal care and beauty products. Featuring nearly 340 brands, along with its own private label, Sephora Collection, Sephora offers beauty products including cosmetics, skincare, body, fragrance, n ...
. The company at which the SIP is based also offers a mentorship program that matches girls in the camp with women in the company. The core curriculum for the program includes lessons on
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,
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and
JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...
programming languages with extra material varying between program sites. The program ends with a final group project, project showcase and graduation ceremony.


Partnerships

In 2016, Girls Who Code partnered with
Accenture Accenture plc is an Irish-American professional services company based in Dublin, specializing in information technology (IT) services and consulting. A ''Fortune'' Global 500 company, it reported revenues of $61.6 billion in 2022. Accentur ...
to work on the future of tech. They subsequently released a report on recommendations to decrease the gender gap in computing.
Dell Technologies Dell Technologies Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Round Rock, Texas. It was formed as a result of the September 2016 merger of Dell and EMC Corporation (which later became Dell EMC). Dell's products inc ...
has partnered with the organization to support after school programs for young girls. On October 11, 2018, Girls Who Code partnered with
TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...
starting the hashtag #raiseyourhand. The app has announced to give US$1 for every video posted using the hashtag with a maximum of $10,000. As of 2020, Girls Who Code has partnered with
American Girl American Girl is an American line of dolls released on May 5, 1986, by Pleasant Company. The dolls portray eight- to fourteen-year-old boys and girls of a variety of ethnicities, faiths, and social classes from different time periods throughou ...
to create a doll who empowers girls to grow confidence and interest in technology. The doll, Courtney Moore, is an avid gamer who codes her own video game while dressed in 80's fashion. From September 2020 to December 2020, American Girl matched customer donations up to $50,000 to Girls Who Code. The organization also created four scholarships, each $5,000, for Girls Who Code members for furthering their computer science education. In December of 2021, Girls Who Code partnered with
Doja Cat Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini (born October 21, 1995), known professionally as Doja Cat ( ), is an American rapper and singer. Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, she began making and releasing music on SoundCloud as a teenager. Her song ...
and Active Theory to create DojaCode, an interactive music video to the star's single '
Woman A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...
'. The interactive video introduced participants to three coding languages and allowed them to modify the appearance of the music video visuals using said languages. This was intended to get more teen girls interested in programming. Girls Who Code has had a partnership with weapons manufacturer
Raytheon Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitaliza ...
since 2018. The company, which is known for manufacturing weapons such as the
Tomahawk A tomahawk is a type of single-handed axe used by the many Indigenous peoples and nations of North America. It traditionally resembles a hatchet with a straight shaft. In pre-colonial times the head was made of stone, bone, or antler, and Europ ...
missile, has donated $1 million to the organization in 2021. Since August 2022, the pair worked together to launch Girls Who Code's Leadership Academy geared for college age girls. This 4 month program is open to over 100 college students. The purpose of the program is to expose students to the technology industry in order to grow their technical and professional skills. The curriculum of the program involves a mentorship program, professional events such as speed networking and interview preparation, as well as, a community-service based project.


Campaigns

Girls Who Code started a digital march called the #MarchforSisterhood. This campaign called for women and allies to post themselves marching for a cause they care about. Posts involve a video or picture of participants either holding a sign that says "I march for..." with the latter half filled in or stating who/what they march for. For
Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...
2020, Girls Who Code partnered with
Olay Olay, previously Oil of Olay, Oil of Olaz, Oil of Ulan or Oil of Ulay, is an American skin care brand owned by Procter & Gamble. For the 2009 fiscal year, which ended on June 30, Olay accounted for an estimated $2.8 billion of P&G's revenue. Ear ...
to make a Super Bowl commercial. The commercial featured
Lilly Singh Lilly Saini Singh (born September 26, 1988) is a Canadian YouTuber. Singh began making YouTube videos in 2010. She originally appeared under the pseudonym Superwoman (stylized IISuperwomanII), her YouTube username until 2019. In 2016, she was in ...
,
Busy Philipps Elizabeth Jean "Busy" Philipps (born June 25, 1979) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles on the television series ''Freaks and Geeks'' (1999–2000), ''Dawson's Creek'' (2001–2003), ''Love, Inc.'' (2005–2006) and '' ER'' ...
,
Taraji P. Henson Taraji Penda Henson ( ; born September 11, 1970) is an American actress. She studied acting at Howard University and began her Hollywood career in guest roles on several television shows before making her breakthrough in '' Baby Boy'' (2001). Sh ...
,
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and, retired astronaut,
Nicole Stott Nicole Marie Passonno Stott (born November 19, 1962) is an American engineer and a retired NASA astronaut. She served as a Flight Engineer on ISS Expedition 20 and Expedition 21 and was a Mission Specialist on STS-128 and STS-133. After 27 year ...
. The commercial was inspired by the first all-female spacewalk from October 2019. Olay donated $1 to Girls Who Code for each time #MakeSpaceForWomen was used on Twitter. In 2020, Girls Who Code released the campaign "Missing Code." The campaign involved a series of videos that depict applications such as
Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
and
Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
glitching Glitching is an activity in which a person finds and exploits flaws or glitches in video games to achieve something that was not intended by the game designers. Players who engage in this practice are known as glitchers. Some glitches can be ea ...
out. These glitches were caused when code written by women were removed. The purpose of the campaign was to depict what the internet would look like if all the code written by women vanished and if women were not part of the technology industry.


International Expansion

In November 2018, Girls Who Code expanded to Canada. This was the organization's first international expansion. With the help of
Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...
and the Federation of Ontario Public Libraries, Girls Who Code has launched at least 10 after-school clubs across Ontario. The expansion was announced at the Move the Dial Summit. As of August 2022, Girls Who Code has also expanded to India in order to increase the number of women engineers in India from 26%. The organization partnered with
United Technologies United Technologies Corporation (UTC) was an American multinational conglomerate headquartered in Farmington, Connecticut. It researched, developed, and manufactured products in numerous areas, including aircraft engines, aerospace systems ...
to offer a virtual two week Summer Immersion Program, virtual six week self paced program and after school clubs. Girls Who Code has also expanded to the United Kingdom.


Controversy

In 2020-2021, four titles from the Girls Who Code books series, ''The Friendship Code'', ''Team BFF: Race to the Finish!'', ''Lights, Music, Code!'' and ''Spotlight on Coding Club!,'' were banned from the Central York school district in Pennsylvania. The books were listed on the PEN America's Index of School Book Bans for a 10-month period from November 2020 to September 2021. These books were also on a resource list created by the district's diversity committee which had other banned books such as ''
The Handmaid's Tale ''The Handmaid's Tale'' is a futuristic dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood and published in 1985. It is set in a near-future New England in a patriarchal, totalitarian theonomic state known as the Republic of Gilead, which h ...
''. Saujani stated that the banning was linked to the
Moms for Liberty Moms for Liberty is an American conservative 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization that claims to advocate for parental rights in schools. The organization has campaigned against COVID-19 restrictions in schools, including mask and vaccine mandate ...
group. The group has not confirmed this. The Moms for Liberty co-founder, Tina Descovich, said that the group is only concerned with banning material that would give their children easy access to sexually explicit content and pornography.


See also

*
Black Girls Code Black Girls CODE (BGC) is a not-for-profit organization that focuses on providing technology education for African-American girls. Kimberly Bryant, an electrical engineer who had worked in biotech for over 20 years, founded Black Girls Code in ...
*
Native Girls Code Native Girls Code (NGC) is a Seattle-based program that focuses on providing computer coding skills with grounding in traditional Indigenous knowledge for Native Americans in the United States, Native American girls aged 12–18 through workshops, c ...
*
Women Who Code Women Who Code (WWCode) is an international non-profit organization that provides services for women pursuing technology careers and a job board for companies seeking coding professionals. The company aims to provide an avenue into the technolo ...
*
I Look Like an Engineer The I Look Like an Engineer movement was created in August 2015 by software developer Isis Anchalee (formerly Isis Wenger) as a response to the backlash the OneLogin recruitment ad in which she was featured received. The movement aspired to break th ...


References


External links

*
Reshma Saujani's talk at TEDxGotham 2011 on Girls Who Code
(
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video)
Reshma's TED2016 Talk, "Teach Girls Bravery, Not Perfection"
{{Authority control Non-profit organizations based in the United States Computer science education Organizations established in 2012 Women in computing 2012 establishments in the United States