By Ariyana GriffinAFRO Employees Writeragriffin@afro.com
Black Women Code (BGC) is a company devoted to breaking down boundaries to entry to science, know-how, engineering and arithmetic for Black ladies and ladies ages seven to 25 years outdated.
The group’s work is crucial as a result of low numbers of Black ladies partaking in fields associated to know-how. A analysis report carried out by Accenture confirmed that “27 p.c of computing roles within the U.S. market are held by ladies,” nonetheless alarmingly “simply 3 p.c and a pair of oercent are held by African-American and Hispanic American/Latina ladies.”
Since 2011, Black Women Code has been on a mission to vary the numbers, take away boundaries, and improve illustration in tech areas for Black women and girls. The group’s work has led to a rise within the variety of Black women and girls pursuing careers in STEM fields, contributing to a extra various and inclusive tech business.
Tamika Tretu, vice chairman of packages for ladies ages seven to 18, mentioned that the group is all in regards to the enterprise of serving to craft the following technology of leaders.
“[We’re] dedicated to getting ready the following technology of Black ladies and expansive youth of colour to be builders, builders, designers, innovators,” mentioned Tretu.
That is working in the direction of their objective of permitting Black ladies and ladies to be greater than shoppers of know-how–however the creators, pushing the brand new wave of know-how innovation.
“We’ve got to work in tech to take away the biases that exist and to even be part of the room and have these important conversations of what our perspective is aware of could possibly be lacking,” Tretu mentioned. “We wish to launch a million Black ladies, ladies, gender expansive youth into tech by 2040 – we wish them to be the leaders.”
The group has three pillars that encourage, educate, and launch, that are divided by age teams to offer college students with programming and hands-on experiences. Mixing college students’ pursuits, corresponding to coding video video games, music, and humanities via coding languages, beginning with Scratch and advancing to Python and Javascript, permits them to see that they will code and maintain house within the sector.
“We’re one of many solely organizations that take ladies from childhood all the way in which into womanhood, nourishing and fostering their tech journey,” Tretu informed the AFRO.
BG has three pillars, encourage, educate and launch, which can be divided in numerous age teams to assist them evolve their expertise.
Encourage prepares college students ages seven to 10 with the instruments and expertise to be taught Scratch, a coding language, via varied workshops, enrichment subject journeys, camps and extra. The coaching permits the scholars to assist increase their confidence and be taught extra about coding.
Educate is for college kids 10 to 13, which progresses the coding language to a more difficult one whereas offering workshops, after-school coding golf equipment, on-line instruments with specialists, subject journeys, and extra to create extra studying experiences.
The following pillar, launch, prepares highschool college students ages 14 to 17 and college students ages 18 to 24 with the instruments and prep wanted to enter school or the work subject. College students are in a position to partake in apprenticeships, obtain assist with job and school functions, and hone the abilities they’ve realized all through this system. At this stage, college students are additionally inspired to volunteer and mentor the packages with youthful college students, offering alternatives for neighborhood inside every pillar.
These workshops and alternatives for every pillar happen in over eight cities, together with Los Angeles, Washington D.C., New York Metropolis, and Oakland; throughout the subsequent yr, this system plans to broaden to over ten cities throughout the U.S.
Nevertheless, BGC has created an enormous on-line neighborhood inside their YouTube channel, Code Alongside, garnering over 18 million subscribers and over 4 million views.
Code Alongside and Code Alongside Jr., launched in 2023, are complete on-line assets that embrace tutorials, vlogs, professional interviews, and extra. These assets cowl a variety of matters within the tech business and are designed to be accessible to college students who might not have entry to in-person occasions.
“The US [has] our prime viewers, however so does Brazil, India and Ghana,” mentioned Tretu. “International locations the place they’ve predominantly giant populations of Black and brown ladies are seeing themselves in our content material and clicking in to discover ways to code.”
The group reported that 52.0 p.c of viewers had no information of coding previous to viewing its Code Alongside collection.
This yr, BGC sponsored 16 Tech Prep Fellows to attend AfroTech, a multi-day convention for tech fans to have interaction in neighborhood constructing and panels, in addition to take part in an onsite job truthful.
Tanesha Fuller, a junior at New York College finding out Quantitative Economics and Laptop Science, expressed that going to AfroTech with BGC was an ideal studying and networking expertise.
“After I went to AfroTech, out of the 16 ladies that went, I used to be the one one which’s keen on ‘fintech,’ which is the place quantitative economics are available in,” mentioned Fuller. “I spent loads of my time throughout the day going to workshops and seminars about AI and Fintech.”
She shared that her expertise with BGC has been inspiring to fulfill others within the subject who appear like her in addition to the continual assist they’ve offered her with. At the moment taking 18 school credit, she expressed that the steering, assets and scholarships have offered her with an ideal alternative to propel and achieve expertise within the business.
“Figuring out that there’s individuals who assist you thru and thru and wanna see you win is essential,” mentioned Fuller. “However, having a corporation devoted to saying, ‘I do know that there’s an absence of assets and it’s possible you’ll not know these assets, so we’re gonna rent folks to verify we get you these assets’ is useful.”
BGC is devoted to introducing Black women and girls to the world of coding and know-how via their programming. To be taught extra in regards to the group, or join an in-person or on-line workshop, go to wearebgc.org.
