Quick math review: women comprise approximately 50 percent of the population. Therefore, in any given industry, they should make up approximately 50 percent of the jobs. Right? Well, last month Google released its first-ever diversity report, and the results weren’t exactly the type that makes you want to say “hooray” for progress. Women only hold 17 percent of Google’s tech jobs.
Thankfully, the tech giant is trying to break up the boy’s club. Yesterday it announced the launch of a new girl-centric website, Made With Code. The site has cool videos from female coders (called makers), resources for parents and a search engine that tells you what coding events are happening in your area, but arguably the most innovative section is about the projects. Girls can learn how to make a printed bracelet, build beats for a song and create an animated GIF.
For the second part of their initiative, Google is committing $50 million to help get girls into computer science; for example, giving money to teachers who encourage their female students to learn CS on platforms like Codecademy or Khan Academy.
Lastly, they’re collaborating with organizations like Girl Scouts and Girls, Inc., which will introduce Made With Code to their members.
As if that doesn’t sound cool enough, guess who kicked off the Thursday launch party in NYC? Some of our favorite female rockstars, Mindy Kaling and Chelsea Clinton.
Google found that most girls decide whether they want to learn to code before they ever enter college — so this youth-targeting project will play a huge role in increasing the number of women who code and, hopefully, who work at Google and in Silicon Valley.
“My school-age daughter instinctively knows how to play games, watch videos and chat with friends online. She understands technology. And she likes using technology. But, she never expressed any interest in creating it herself,” Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube and one of the campaign’s founders, wrote on Google’s blog. “Nowadays, coding isn’t just a skill useful for working at a tech company; engineering isn’t just for engineers. Interior design. Medicine. Architecture. Music. No matter what a girl dreams of doing, learning how to code will help her get there. Their future — our future — is made with code. Let’s do what we can to make sure that future is as bright as possible.”