On Monday, we kicked-off of our summer immersion program with Girls Who Code – an amazing national non-profit organization that seeks to inspire, educate, and equip girls with computing skills for the 21st century!
IBM will host female high-school students in New York City for an intense, 7 week summer immersion program. These students will experience a robust curriculum of daily classroom instruction, workshops, demos, and talks by a team of remarkable female IBM leaders and more. We’re empowering these girls with hands-on training on the latest and greatest IBM Cloud has to offer! That means instruction on Bluemix, our premier PaaS solution, and a host of other Cloud technologies. They’ll receive more than 250 hours of superb training in a variety of computer science disciplines, including:
· Robotics
· Graphic design
· Mobile apps
· Data structures and algorithms
We’re also providing these girls with career advice, along with help developing their presentation skills, and inspiring their entrepreneurial pursuits. We’ve also lined up some technical experiences through field trips, including, a tour of Astor Place — home to some of our coolest IBM Cloud technologies.
This partnership demonstrates IBM’s commitment to helping close the gender gap for women in technology. Currently, women hold 25% of jobs in technical fields. When deciding a college major, 0.3% of girls choose computer science.
We’re so excited to teach these young women using the latest tech from IBM Cloud — especially Bluemix. Our goal is to enable women around the world across a variety of STEM fields and I can’t think of a greater first step than this partnership with the amazing people of Girls Who Code.
“The gender gap isn’t just a Silicon Valley issue anymore,” said Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code. “The shortage of women in technical roles, whether it’s retail or entertainment, is a massive crisis both in terms of innovation and socioeconomic equality throughout the United States. Girls Who Code has established a successful track record of empowering girls to pursue majors and careers in computer science, and we’re inspired that so many diverse companies have invested in taking our movement to the next level this year.” IBM hopes that along with Girls Who Code, we can see a reverse in this trend, and a move toward balance in the future.
In 2015, Girls Who Code will host 57 programs reaching close to 1,200 girls in nine cities nationwide throughout the summer, representing a significant increase from the 19 programs serving 375 girls in 2014. We’re proud to join this critical effort to close the gender gap in the computing and technology sector!
