Working with Girls Who Code

If we want there to be more women who pursue careers in engineering and computer science and feel welcome in these fields, we have to work on ways to increase the number of women studying engineering — it’s that simple. This is one reason we have an active Women in Engineering group (@womeng) at Twitter, made up of women and men, both engineers and non-engineers, who are passionate about encouraging young women to opt for and stay in computer science. Of course we have self-interest in this too: having more female engineers on staff leads to having an even better working environment at Twitter. But more importantly, we want to support engineering education and make it more accessible to young women.

All of which leads to our new partnership with Girls Who Code, a program founded by Reshma Saujani (@reshmasaujani), designed to introduce high school girls to software development skills. Through our investment of time, energy and money, we will be working with Girls Who Code to empower young women and provide them with the skills and resources necessary to pursue a career in engineering and technology.

Girls Who Code will begin this summer in New York City with an 8-week intensive program to teach basic principles of computer science and coding as well as sessions on design, research and entrepreneurship. Each participant will be matched with a female mentor from a tech company, and she and her mentor will work closely throughout the program and afterwards.

We cannot wait to see what the future holds for Girls Who Code, and we certainly hope to hire at least some of the participants in a few years. You can follow along too, via @womeng and @GirlsWhoCode.

Posted by Sara Haider, Engineer (@pandemona)

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