The Ladies of the Coding World
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While women are yet to be fully incorporated in all work fields, in the field of computer science, there is a severe lack of women working in it. There are, of course, many factors causing this; from girls being discouraged from pursuing scientific fields, to not having female role models to follow, to companies favoring males, making it difficult for women to find jobs in competitive companies. In the United States of America, only 0.4% of high school girls show an interest in studying computer science in university, which shows that there is an early onset problem, which needs to be addressed.
In comes “Girls Who Code”, a brilliant initiative that has the main aim of inspiring young girls into developing an interest in computer science. This non-profit organization does so in various ways; before delving more into what they do, let us find out what this code is.
Breaking the Code
A coder is essentially a translator that works as a medium between human language and computer language. Now you might think what could this computer language be? Well, it consists of 1 and 0, and is called the binary code. This is the code that essentially tells the computer what to do. How could those two digits mean anything?
It has to do with the combinations it comes in and they can come in millions and millions of combinations. The combinations are made of groups of eight, which are called bytes. Who would have the time and patience to input 1 and 0 over and over to get the computer to work? Of course, there is a better solution than just someone endlessly pressing the 1 and 0 keys for eternity. In comes what is known as programming languages.
Programming languages come in two levels: Low Level and High Level. The one closest to the binary code are low-level languages, but these are more difficult to use; whereas high-level languages are easier to use to program in since they are designed especially to be easy to write with and are less detailed. Programming languages have their own rules that dictate how a code can be written.
To create different computer software, websites, and applications, one needs to use different programming languages, and these in turn take what coders write and translate it into binary codes that can then be processed by the computer to create the required result. All that we see on our screens everywhere is the result of coding, and this is why it is essential to computer science.
It is clear that learning how to code is a cornerstone for a career as a computer specialist. At the rate things have been progressing, it would be difficult to imagine that half of the computer specialist job openings could go to women, because simply there are not enough women studying computer science. This is exactly the issue Girls Who Code is trying to address; if more female school students are exposed to computer science during their education, the chances are that they will be more interested and willing to pursue a computer science in higher education.
The Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Girls Who Code, Reshma Saujani, saw the gender gap in the technological field, and decided it was high time to start implementing effective solutions. The organization provides many programs for high-school girls that teach them the fundamentals of programming, mobile development, robotics, as well as web development and design.
This essential schooling in computer science trains girls not only in a class environment, but also offers them the chance to interact with actual professionals from the field in order to gain a real-world understanding of it. In this way, they gain the hard and soft skills needed to forge a path in this field. The organization’s mission is to expose more and more girls to computer science education in order to encourage them to enter the field later on in life; they have already tutored 10,000 girls across the USA, and are hoping to reach many more in the future.
Many tech companies are involved in providing support to Girls Who Code; one such company is AT&T New York, which has been involved with the organization since its creation. Marissa Shorenstein, President of the Company, believes that Girls Who Code “… opens girls up to the possibility of a career in computer science, which we know is a gateway to better employment for them and a brighter economic future”. With the dedication of organizations like Girls Who Code, gender equality in technological fields could be more attainable in the coming future.
References
girlswhocode.com
microsoft.com
forbes.com
This article was first published in print in SCIplanet, Spring 2016 issue.
Cover designed by Freepik