Seventy four percent of middle school girls express interest in science, technology, engineering and math yet only four percent pursue computer science in college. In an effort to change such statistics, Girls Who Code — an immersion program that gives high school girls seven weeks of hands-on experience in computing concepts, programming fundamentals, mobile phone development, robotics and web development and design — embed classrooms in technology companies and universities around the country.
Intuit’s Mountain View campus hosted 20 Girls Who Code students from June 16-Aug. 1, where they received guidance from female mentors, attended workshops, listened to speakers and came up with minimum viable products, built prototypes, learned Lean Startup methodologies and showed off their innovations at a Gallery Walk.
Last year the program served 375 girls across 19 programs. Of past attendees, 90 percent went on to major/minor in CS or closely related fields, 77 percent changed paths because of Girls Who Code and 92 percent of program participants taught someone else to code. For more about Girls Who Code’s partnership with Intuit and the future of female technologists, see below: