“She Can Tech” is inspiring more women to pursue technology by teaching 20 Northwest Indiana girls computing concepts with fun, interactive activities through NCWIT AspireIT – a technology outreach program for K-12 girls, supported by Intel, Northrop Grumman, and Google.
“She Can Tech” will teach computer science through Scratch, building apps with App Inventor, programming with Arduino, creating simple circuits, and website design principles. Sanja Kirova, an NCWIT Aspirations in Computing award recipient, will lead the 15-day program, which she designed in partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Northwest Indiana’s Portage Club.
Recent data show that girls comprise 56% of all Advanced Placement (AP) test-takers and 47% of all AP Calculus test-takers, but only 22% of all AP CS test-takers. At the college level, women earn just 17% of all computer and information sciences bachelor’s degrees. The “near-peer” approach of enlisting high school or college students to teach younger peers can be an effective way to encourage girls to consider a field they might not have otherwise pursued.
“Early engagement in STEM for girls is crucial in preventing any insecurity from forming before girls begin choosing career pathways,” said Sanja Kirova, Program Leader. “As a representative for girls in Robotics and Project Lead the Way classes in Northwest Indiana, I can testify of the lack of involvement of girls in technology. We hope that our program, She Can Tech, will excite fellow girls to become future scientists, engineers, programmers, technologists, and advocates.”
“She Can Tech” is one of 75 programs nationwide to occur in NCWIT AspireIT Round 8 (October 15, 2017 through June 14, 2018), an initiative of the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT). To date, NCWIT has gifted more than $800,000 to 300 programs, providing an estimated 240,000 instruction hours to nearly 8,000 girls in 40 states, the District of Columbia, and the US Virgin Islands since 2013. AspireIT aims to engage more than 10,000 girls by 2018.
Register at https://goo.gl/forms/BqeWEFh1DQgknWIy2, visit the Portage Boys & Girls Club, or get in touch with the program leaders for more information. Join us for our Parent-Daughter Night on Tuesday, October 23rd at the Portage Club for tech activities and a sneak-peak at what is in store for the girls before the program’s start on November 1st. // -stay tuned for the next session (March 2019)
NCWIT AspireIT is a component of NCWIT Aspirations in Computing (AiC), a sweeping national talent development initiative for young women in computing, from kindergarten through graduate school. AiC is supported nationally by Apple, AT&T, Bank of America, Bloomberg, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola Solutions Foundation, Northrop Grumman, Qualcomm, and the Symantec Corporation.
