Recently I’ve come across three brand-new, local organizations dedicated to raising the number of women in the technology field. All three organizations are passionate about sharing the knowledge and experience to motivate other women and girls to pursue a career in technology. These three are also just starting out on their quest to squelch gender imbalance, read about each below and learn how you can help their mission.
ChickTech started in Portland, OR to provide “fun, hands-on opportunities for girls and women to get engaged with technology.” We hosted one of their problem-solving events earlier this month that was focused around developing for local Portland nonprofits. On November 9th they’ll be hosting a daylong event at Oregon State University for 100 high school girls. They are a completely volunteer-run nonprofit and are always looking for people who are willing to help, especially now that they are working on expanding to the Bay Area.
This past summer inaugural App Camp for Girls kicked off in Portland as a two weeklong program. “App Camp For Girls is a place where girls can put their creative power to work, concepting and building apps, while learning more about the business of software and being inspired by women who are professional software developers.” App Camp for Girls is also looking to expand to other cities after their success this summer; you can help them spread the fun and creativity of app development on their Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign here.
To take it a step further, our neighbors to the North in Seattle, Washington have launched Ada Developers Academy, “an intensive developer training school for women. It combines six months of classroom instruction in cutting-edge web technologies with up to six month of apprenticeship at a Puget Sound-area tech business.” The academy is named after Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer. They aim to change the male to female ratio of the industry in the state of Washington that currently stands at 85% of developers and programmers are male. They’re still accepting applications through September 30th, so hurry!
Check out our previous blog posts on Resources for Women in Stem and how one female engineer created a toy to interest young girls in science GoldiBlox a Construction Toy for Girls and lastly a comparison of females in two different industries, Women in the Defense Industry and the Technology Industry.
