Black Girls CODE (BGC), a San Francisco based non-profit organization, recently conducted a computer programming workshop for young girls age 7-17 years old at Spelman College.
As a part of BGC’s Summer of CODE campaign which launched in 10 cities nationwide, the one-day workshop taught the 90+ registered girls the basics of HTML, CSS and basic front-end web development, along with incorporating web and music.
The students were split into groups based on their age and experience. Beginning students were placed into color-coded groups (yellow, green, blue), while the intermediate returning students were placed in a part II class (orange group). The girls were tasked with building a website in one day that was based on their interests. Some of the girls created websites based around the presidential election. At the end of the day, each class voted on their favorite website. Students selected a representative from amongst their peers to present their website creations to an audience of parents at the close of the day.
While the girls were hard at work in class, the parents were treated to a complimentary technology career panel, “Imagine the Impact: Guiding your Child into a Career in Technology,” that urged them to motivate and encourage their daughter’s creative interests. They were given tips and free resources such as Codecademy.com and KhanAcademy.org, which are websites that offer free educational videos in technology and much more.
Professionals who participated in the panel included Felecia Hatcher, CEO of Fever Pops; Ramanathan Singaram, office principal of ThoughtWorks; Felicia Jones, president of Atlanta Black Data Processing Professionals; Mrs. Iretta Kearse, professor of Computer Science at Spelman College; Christina M. Gardner-McCune, Ph.D., enrollment, and community college of computing, Georgia Institute of Technology; Kimberly Bryant, founder and executive director of Black Girls CODE; and Yvette Caslin, SVP of strategy and development at Steed Media, who moderated the conversation.
Bryant says the workshop isn’t the last of BGC-Atlanta. “This is the second of many similar workshops planned by Black Girls CODE for the Atlanta Metro area. Plans are to build a local chapter which will host ongoing workshops on subjects such as mobile app development, robotics and gaming for girls in the coming months.”
For more information about Black Girls CODE visit www.blackgirlscode.com.
Photo: Students learn to code and build websites with the help of Black Girls CODE. Pictured here is Princess Sampson. Photo Credit: Lisa M. Zunzanyika, Simply Zee Imagery
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