Computing is where the jobs are and where they will be in the future, but fewer than 1 in 5 computer science graduates are women, and women make up a smaller proportion of computer scientists today than they did 25 years ago.
Founded by Reshma Saujani, the international nonprofit Girls Who Code is changing that by encouraging girls to be brave and find futures in computer science. To date, Girls Who Code has directly worked with 185,000 girls and has indirectly helped 1 million young women. ⠀
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Saujani is focused on closing the gender gap in technology and giving girls and women the opportunity to learn increasingly important digital skills and the chance to build a stable and successful future for themselves in the new world of work. In addition to her career as a lawyer and former Deputy Public Advocate at the Office of the New York City Public Advocate, Saujani is the author of Women Who Don’t Wait in Line: Break the Mold, Lead the Way; Girls Who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World; and Brave, Not Perfect: Fear Less, Fail More, and Live Bolder.
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The participation of female students in computer science is only 20-25 percent of high school courses, university courses, and the workforce. Girls Who Code’s college-aged alumni are majoring in computer science and related fields at a rate 15 times the national average.
The organization reaches historically underrepresented groups at a remarkable rate and their Black and Latinx alumni are majoring in computer science & related fields at a rate 16 times higher than the national average.
Related: Girls Who Code: Nurturing the next generation of engineering leaders
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