Girls Who Code: Bring CS to Girls Across Country

Thank you for your support! Your investment is bringing Girls Who Code closer each day to gender parity in the tech workforce. And that’s especially true right now, as our Summer Immersion Programs are in full swing across the country, and we’re gearing up to launch an unprecedented number of Girls Who Code Clubs this fall! With your help, Girls Who Code will have reached an incredible 10,000 girls with over 750,000 hours of computer science education by the end of 2015.

Our Summer Immersion Program has tripled in size since 2014: we’re operating 57 programs of 20 girls each in ten markets! In Boston, Chicago, DC, LA, Miami, New York, Newark, San Francisco, Seattle and Springfield, Massachusetts, we’re working with our amazing partners to bring over 285,000 hours of computer science education to over 1,100 high school girls.

Girls in our Summer Immersion Programs are learning mobile app development, web design, robotics, and the theories behind coding and creating their own projects, from games to arduinos. Just last week, we saw the largest-ever gathering of Girls Who Code, with over 300 of our Summer Immersion Program participants coming together for the Girls Who Code Facebook Conference!

At the same time, our Clubs Program is celebrating a hugely successful 2014-2015 school year, which saw us reach 34 states with our after-school curriculum model for girls in grades 6-12. Now, we’re getting ready to start the fall 2015 semester with an incredible 500 Clubs nationwide! One of our largest Clubs is our Northern Minnesota Club at Bemidji State University in Minnesota, where the Red Lake Band of Chippewa transports over 50 girls in grades 6-12 to learn computer science with programmer and Club founder Jennifer Theisen.

Since we started our first Clubs fewer than two years ago, we’ve been blown away by the high demand for our computer science education services across the country and around the world. We can’t wait to continue to grow the Clubs Program to serve every girl who wants to learn to code!

With our Clubs and Summer Immersion Programs growing so quickly, we’re excited to be able to share our newest data: An unbelievable 90% of our current Summer Immersion Program graduates are majoring or planning to major in computer science or a related field in college, and 77% said they wouldn’t have done so without Girls Who Code. Out of our thousands of Clubs students in grades 6-12, 75% plan to continue studying computer science after their Girls Who Code experience.

2015 has been a year of explosive growth for Girls Who Code, and this is only the beginning.

As we look ahead to another year of major expansion in 2016, we want you to be a part of it! Give today to continue supporting us as we close the gender gap in computer science. 

Together, we’re creating a movement that is changing the face of technology. We’re looking forward to continuing to work with you!

The Girls Who Code Team

2014 was a year of explosive growth at Girls Who Code. Today, we are proud to say we're not just aiming to close the gender gap in technology--we're actually doing it.

Check out our 2014 Annual Report, which shows the huge strides we made last year-- raising over $7 million and reaching thousands of girls in 24 states with computer science education. 

Thanks to the support of our partners, the dedication of our teachers, staff, and volunteers, and most importantly, the passion of the girls we serve, we have become the leading organization in the country providing computer science education to young women and producing female technologists.

We've grown a lot, and we've also learned a lot. By expanding our Girls Who Code Clubs program to reach more than 2,000 girls in 24 states across the country, we learned that it's possible — and essential — to deliver high quality computer science education at scale. Through our Summer Immersion Program, we found that when you challenge a girl to build a functional product in less than two weeks, she just might build a mobile game that combats sexism and breaks down gender stereotypes. We have discovered that Fortune 500 companies from every sector of the economy — from entertainment to real estate to ad tech — can work together to solve a problem that affects us all.

We learned that we have to keep growing. We are reminded every day that creating gender parity in technology is critical to the future of innovation. Your support in 2014 brought us one giant step closer, and it is my pledge that we will not stop here.

Reshma Saujani

Founder and CEO, Girls Who Code

Links:

• NEW! Girls Who Code 2014 Annual Report