coderGirls

coderGirls is an international nonprofit organization for females in K-12 to be empowered in a technical career, to learn computer science, and to connect coding to their passions.

The gender gap is prominent in our society. Yet, I cannot think of a more important solution than teaching women computer science. Computer science is the future. Girls and women in the U.S. are users of technology, but they are significantly underrepresented in coding. For example, due to the lack of women, LinkedIn only autocorrected for male names and not female ones. It demonstrates that due to the computer science industry lacking women, they forget about females and their needs. If women were to join the field, it could potentially improve women’s financial inclusion, increase opportunities for females in tech, and help correct the stereotypes about females. Thus, when I was 16-years-old, I made my nonprofit, coderGirls.

coderGirls is an international nonprofit organization for females K-12 to be empowered in a technical career and to learn computer science. We also aim for disadvantaged girls in various communities. Since the beginning, I have implemented chapters and curriculum with 85 Girl Scout councils and over 350 schools to impact over 500,000 girls. In doing so, coderGirls wants to create an impact, so the main focus is for our chapters to connect computer science to doing community outreach and their passions. We have over 20 chapters in Bangladesh, Nepal, Ukraine, India, New York, Chicago, and various states to educate in our curriculum of Java, Python, C++, HTML/CSS, and more. Then, we are partnered with White House’s CSForAll, National Center for Women and Information Technology, Let’s Start Coding, and more. With our partners, there is an impact on 900 organizations, on 30 states, and with the potential to impact of 100% of U.S. girls.  At the moment, we are partnered with National Girl Scouts of America to create a coding badge, to use our courses nationally, and to potentially impact 2.7 million girls.

Girls seem to see coding as a “guy thing” filled with “bro” culture and smelly guys in their pajamas. Then, females are stereotyped to liberal arts over STEM. Additionally, in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, they assessed 6-year-old children’s stereotypes about STEM fields and tested an intervention to develop girls’ STEM motivation despite these stereotypes. First-grade children held stereotypes that boys were better than girls at robotics and programming. Yet, when the girls experienced programming, their interest and confidence in those subjects rose. 

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in the 1984-1985 academic year women accounted for nearly 37% of all computer science undergraduate students. Yet, the number dropped as the use of home computers became more common. In movies, men were displayed as programmers and were labeled as "nerdy." Now, people think of coding as difficult and only 0s and 1s. However, with coderGirls, we aim to counter the stereotype when girls are young by showing that you can connect computer science to art, dance, and more. Thus, girls are allowed to finally view computer science as a career option. 

As stated previously, I have implemented coderGirls chapters and curriculum with 85 Girl Scout councils and over 350 schools to impact over 500,000 girls. At the moment, we are partnered with the National Girl Scouts of America to create a coding badge and use our courses to potentially impact 2.7 million girls.

In terms of benefits, coderGirls will benefit girls, yet it will also better society as a whole with the stereotypes disappearing. coderGirls is deployed to our audience through school chapters, online curriculum, coderGirls International Video Competition, and our "Inspire_Her" series, where we feature female coders to inspire girls.

We will use surveys to quantify the number of girls. - Impact 2.7 million girls.

We will use pre-surveys and post-surveys to evaluate the improvement rating on thinking CS as a career option. - Have a 80% improvement rating on what girls think of CS as a career option after taking coderGirls courses.

We will contact them over the years and evaluate their projected roadmap with a survey, - Have 80% of our girls major in STEM.

Many other programs try having a larger market reach by aiming for boys and girls, yet that doesn’t solve the problem. Girls in those programs are left in the dust and end up dropping out due to feeling intimidated. Thus, we empower girls in programming. Then, we also have a unique curriculum by connecting computer science to a variety of passions, such as art, music, or even hardware. Then, as stated previously, we also show the connections that coding as to their passions through our video competition and how other females are revolutionizing technology through our feature program called inspire_her.

I live in central Florida, thus I was never given many computing resources. So, I had to learn code independently through books or online courses. In addition, there was barely any female specific coding groups in my area. I had to explore the world of coding on my own. Thus, I set out to make computer science assessable to girls. I researched into how females began leaving technology and what other organizations were doing. I used that information in conjunction with feedback from girls across the world to create an ideal computer science program for females.

coderGirls produces it's curriculum online. Everything that coderGirls does is for free. Thus, we deploy our resources online for girls without a chapter nearby. Besides working independently, we have chapters located across the world, where girls use our curriculum and participate in other coderGirls activities. Then, we also have our resources used by many Girl Scout Councils across the United States to share with a younger demographic. In addition, due to coderGirls and the National Girl Scouts of America partnering, we are able to deploy our curriculum to millions of girls.

We never had to depend on financials as coderGirls distributes curriculum and our resources to chapters at public institutions with computers, such as schools or libraries. Thus, we never had to depend on finances to keep our programs running. However, in the future, we are planning to create a scholarship program for high school females pursuing computer science in college, thus we will gain the money through grant programs or generous donators. 

The main factor limiting coderGirls is that many women already have a stereotype about STEM and programming. However, coderGirls counters that limitation by aiming for younger demographics and teaching them computer science, while also demonstrating the creativity of code.

I'm applying to Solve with coderGirls as I want coderGirls to gain more partnerships, gain the interest of donators, and to have women to be better represented financially, socially, and in the work environment.

National Girl Scouts of America, Grok Learning, TechGirlz, White House's CSForAll, Mobile CSP, Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT AspireIT, TechniFusion, and Let's Start Coding

Code Circle, ProjectCSGIRLS