As the oldest daughter of six, Vanessa Tostado always felt pressure from her immigrant parents to succeed in school.

She enrolled in Eastside College Preparatory School in East Palo Alto, California, which helps first-generation students enroll and earn a degree. She fostered her passion for STEM by taking science classes and participating in national math competitions. 

But during her sophomore year, Tostado hit a roadblock. Her computer science class became so difficult that she asked her vice principal if she could withdraw. She was one of the few female students enrolled, and though computers were a field she was interested in pursuing after high school, she struggled with assignments while her classmates thrived.

鈥淏efore we could leave class, we would have these sort of exit slips to solve a problem. I just remember this dreadful feeling of, 鈥業 don’t know how to do this. I’m stuck.鈥� And this is your exit ticket to go to lunch and all my peers are leaving,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 was really feeling like this is not for me, like I’m just not getting it.鈥�

Tostado credits Technovation, an international tech education nonprofit, for getting her back on track while reinvigorating her passion for STEM. The organization connects girls ages 8 to 18 with mentors who help them learn about coding, artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship in order to create mobile apps that address real-world problems.聽

鈥淚n high school, I had a very fixed mindset of, 鈥業 can’t do it. It’s not for me.鈥� Through the mentorship that I had in Technovation, that really sort of shifted,鈥� Tostado said. 鈥淚t’s not that I can’t do it, I just don’t know how to do it. And I need to figure out what I don’t know how to do, and what questions I need to ask to help me get there.鈥�

Since 2006, Technovation has served more than 150,000 girls around the world, mostly through a free, annual international competition that challenges participants to find a problem in their community and build a mobile or web app to help solve it. 

The organization has a network of chapters that work with mentors, volunteers and parents to help individual girls, or teams of up to five, create their projects over a period of several weeks. Last year, Technovation from 7,500 girls.

Tara Chklovski founded Technovation, formerly named Iridescent, after witnessing the lack of women in STEM fields while working on a doctorate in aerospace engineering at the University of Southern California. It was a stark difference from her bachelor鈥檚 degree program in India, which had equal representation of men and women.

鈥淭here were two or three women in (my) entire Ph.D. program. So then you begin to notice, and you’re like, 鈥榃hy is that?鈥� 鈥� Chklovski said. 鈥淚 think the thing that really surprised me was that women would sort of say with pride, 鈥極h, I don’t do math. I’m bad at math.鈥� And I’m like, 鈥榃hy is that something that you’re saying so proudly?鈥� You don’t say, 鈥業’m bad at reading, I can’t read a book.鈥� I think that was bothering me.鈥�

A new international study from the American Institutes for Research shows that by age 6, kids already perceive boys to be better than girls at computer science and engineering. Among girls, such beliefs only grow more entrenched over time.

Chklovski left her doctorate program to create a nonprofit of her own. She eventually founded Technovation, which began as a school-based STEM program but shifted to serving girls internationally in 2010. The nonprofit launched its global competition in 2012 and has since focused on increasing women’s representation in technology industries, including artificial intelligence.

This year, Technovation formed a collaboration with UNICEF, Google and other companies called the , which provides government agencies and nonprofits around the world with guidance on how to incorporate artificial intelligence education into their own mission and work. 

Technovation is 鈥渃alling upon the world and other countries’ governments to help close the gender gap鈥� in technology and STEM industries,鈥� according to the organization. Chklovski said the alliance鈥檚 goal is to .

In Technovation鈥檚 competition, girls identify issues in their communities, build mobile app prototypes to offer solutions and create business plans, complete with a pitch and video, to be judged. The projects go through a round of semi-finals before the finalists are flown to Silicon Valley to pitch their projects in person.

Tostado hadn鈥檛 heard about Technovation until after her struggles began as a sophomore in 2013. When a mentor at her after-school program proposed that Tostado and some of her friends participate in the competition, she was hooked 鈥� especially after learning that she could help her own community in the process.聽

For three months, working on their own time outside of class, Tostado鈥檚 team focused on creating an app called Tag It, which aims to improve their local neighborhood by notifying residents of graffiti and helping to organize events to clean it up.聽

鈥淭he idea was, essentially, build an app that lets people say, 鈥業 am going to create an event to paint over the graffiti at the public library.鈥� And then, if someone is feeling like they want to volunteer, they can join that,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he idea was getting people to work together to help clean up East Palo Alto.鈥�

Technovation also encourages a focus on climate solutions for project submissions. One girl in India built an app that would tell users their risk of getting lung cancer from air pollution in their community. A team from Argentina created an artificial intelligence app that predicted the chance of wildfires in specific areas.

鈥淭hese young women are still in school, right? They are creating real solutions to solve real problems,鈥� Chklovski said. 鈥淏ut then, as they become alumni and they go into the workforce, they continue with that 鈥� they have that mindset to solve problems.鈥�

The Tag It app ranked among the top 20 projects judged in the Technovation competition that year. While the app didn鈥檛 win the entire challenge, Tostado said the education and mentorship she received from the nonprofit 鈥� which continued throughout her high school career 鈥� helped her rediscover her passion for STEM.

鈥淚’m coming from a place of like, I can’t solve this exit ticket 鈥� and I have to scarf my lunch down my throat to get to my next class 鈥� to this confidence of [being] able to create this app,鈥� Tostado said. 鈥淚 think that mentorship and experience gave me the confidence to continue with my classes in high school and then continue taking classes in undergrad.鈥�

Tostado graduated from Eastside in 2015 and enrolled at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where she earned a bachelor’s in 2019. She then landed a software engineering job at Palo Alto Networks, a multinational cybersecurity firm.聽

Throughout college, Tostado said, she noticed there was still a lack of women in STEM programs. At conferences, she was told she was 鈥渟tepping into something that鈥檚 not the norm.鈥� Tostado is currently the only woman on her team of 10 engineers.

鈥淚 don’t feel like my team treats me any less than, and I feel like my opinions are heard, but I can definitely understand that might not be the norm everywhere,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 also one of those things, like, you don’t know what you don’t have until you have it, right? Maybe in the future, I join a team and there’s a woman manager, or there are more women on the team, and I’m like, 鈥榃hoa. This is what I’ve been missing.鈥� 鈥�

Correction: The Eastside College Preparatory School graduate’s last name is Tostado.

Diversifying the science, technology, engineering and math fields has long been a top priority of and . of the National Science Foundation, the biggest funder of university-led research and development in the U.S.

But there鈥檚 another annual observance this month dedicated specifically to celebrating women working in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers 鈥� while also acknowledging there鈥檚 still a long way to go. 

began as a grassroots movement in 2016, started by a group of female meteorologists to celebrate female STEM pioneers, those active in the field and the next generation of female scientists on March 14.

March 14 marks Pi Day, a celebration of the mathematical symbol pi. by physicist Larry Shaw, March 14 was selected because the numerical date represents the first three digits of pi (3.14) 鈥� and also happens to be Albert Einstein鈥檚 birthday.  

It wasn鈥檛 until 2009 that Pi Day became an official holiday when the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation. But almost 40 years after Pi Day was born, women in STEM and their allies are asking for more diversity in the field.

All it took was a who planned to wear the same purple dress on Pi Day in 2016 and 2017, garnering viral attention as well as the opportunity to drive the Pi Day conversation to the underrepresentation of women in STEM.

This Pi Day (3.14) the ladies at AccuWeather are wearing the same dress to promote more women in STEM: Science Technology Engineering & Math

鈥� Cam Tran WESH (@CamTranTV)

While MIT that the gender gap in STEM careers remains significant, with women accounting for only 28% of the field in 2023, Edutopia that female visibility in the field is increasing, with nearly 58% of young girls drawing a picture of a scientist who looks like them in 2016 鈥� when #DressForSTEM was launched 鈥� compared to 1% when the study was first conducted in the 1960s. 

Today, in 2024, #DressForSTEM still stands: Those who participate in the initiative wear purple and create social media posts with the hashtag #DressForSTEM on March 14.

We’ve chosen to go a step further and celebrate by presenting photographic proof of the ongoing contributions women have made to STEM.

In 2021, North Carolina had 300,000 STEM jobs, yet women accounted for only 28% of them.

That’s according to the , which spoke at the

Women account for about half of all jobs in North Carolina, which makes their low showing in STEM professions notable.

Emily Roach, director of policy and planning at the Department of Commerce, talked about its efforts to do something about this, including launch of the That plan “includes strategies to enable more women to enter the workforce by increasing access to childcare, education, training, and family friendly work environments,” according to the presentation.

“Advancing opportunities for women in STEM is a real point of passion for Secretary Sanders,” Roach told the committee.

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She talked about a few other initiatives launched by the department, including a mentorship program for female high school students to get them interested in STEM jobs in government.

She also talked about the department’s attempt to critique its own role in the STEM gender gap. The department took part in the, which was organized by and had employees of various organizations do a self assessment to look at diversity in gender and ethnicity when it comes to both STEM and leadership positions. Roach said that the Department of Commerce found it was doing a good job in that regard when it comes to leadership positions 鈥� but not so much when it came to STEM.

Getting more women into STEM fields is important because 71% of North Carolina STEM employers say they have trouble with finding the workers they need.

Meanwhile, the growth in STEM jobs will be twice as fast at non-STEM jobs during the next 10 years. It’s projected that there will be more than 27,000 STEM job openings each year.

So has North Carolina improved at all over time when it comes to getting women into STEM fields?

According to the Department of Commerce, more women have taken on STEM jobs since 2011, but the numbers are still relatively small and women are still considered a minority in the industry.

And women in STEM stand to benefit by going into these types of jobs. The pay for STEM jobs is significantly higher compared to non-STEM fields. Unfortunately, women in STEM still tend to make less than their male counterparts.

“There is quite a significant gap,” said Jeffrey DeBellis, director of economic and policy analysis in the Department of Commerce’s Labor & Economic Analysis Division. “Whether that is a factor in women鈥檚 desire to get into the industry, I can鈥檛 say.”

You can see the

Members of the also spoke to the committee about their efforts to get accounting classified as a STEM field, which is of particular concern as the pipeline for students expressing interest in the profession declines.

According to that association, accounting faculty are reporting a 54% decline in enrollment and graduation rates in accounting programs around the country. However, women make up more than half of all accounting graduates.

A STEM designation makes programs more attractive to students and it makes students more attractive to employers, among other benefits, Scott Showalter, director of the Master of Accounting Program at North Carolina State University’s , told the committee.

The association came to the committee hoping to get lawmakers to help them advance the profession, including by designating accounting as a STEM field in North Carolina.

You can

The committee also heard presentations on the and .

The Future City Competition is a STEM-based competition for middle schoolers. You can see the

Betabox focuses on hands-on STEM instruction through its mobile learning labs. You can see the

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Twenty years after former Secretary of Education Richard Riley spoke these words, the need for qualified professionals in science, technology, engineering and mathematics continues to grow as the nation confronts global health, climate and security challenges that require innovative solutions to save lives.

STEM occupations are projected to increase as all other jobs through 2029, and while the number of college graduates with degrees in STEM-related fields is seeing comparable growth, to education in these fields is creating barriers to entering the workforce for people of color and women.

A close look at the data on who works in STEM reveals that Black and Hispanic professionals are compared with their white and Asian peers, and women fill only a of STEM jobs. This isn鈥檛 just a matter of equity 鈥� it’s a labor shortage issue. The U.S. population continues to become , and a recent cited concerns that America will be unable to meet workplace demands if the number of individuals from these populations earning bachelor鈥檚 degrees in STEM fields doesn鈥檛 significantly grow.  

This gap in access starts in early childhood, as infants begin developing their spatial awareness. The ability to create and manipulate visual images begins and continues through childhood, and is an for success in STEM careers. Yet children from low-income backgrounds have fewer opportunities, such as to blocks, to discover or develop their spatial intelligence. This continues throughout K-12 education, as schools and districts that predominantly enroll Black and/or Hispanic students and are located in low-income areas to provide science labs, hands-on activities and other resources necessary for high-quality STEM learning.

There is also a gap in the support and opportunities available outside of classroom settings. Parents with lower incomes and/or those who lack a college education are to believe their children will learn everything they need to know in school and are in their ability to support science and math learning at home. Particularly concerning for the increased representation of women in STEM is the fact that mothers are than fathers to feel confident in helping their children engage in science.

Ironically, the global challenges, such as climate change, that require a robust STEM workforce are also exacerbating these equity gaps in STEM education by keeping students out of classrooms and away from critical hands-on learning experiences in school labs. After Hurricane Ida hit the Gulf Coast in August 2021 as a Category 4 storm, of Louisiana鈥檚 students missed classes due to damage to their schools 鈥� in some cases, for up to a month. This in-person instruction couldn鈥檛 be replaced with virtual learning because of storm damage to critical infrastructure, including power lines.

Similar inequities occurred when the COVID-19 pandemic forced most school systems to shift to remote learning, as many students did not have access to sufficient broadband at home. Some states attempted to provide connections by parking school buses with mobile internet hotspots in neighborhoods. But this required students to be on the bus or working just outside in order to log on, and assumed that students would learn as well in that environment as at the kitchen table, with a parent nearby to help. This digital divide impacted Black, Hispanic and low-income students. In Baltimore, it is estimated that about of students were prevented from participating in virtual schooling. These concerns continue even as children return to the classroom, as school curricula and existing challenges, such as the , persist.

Local, state and federal policymakers must understand the economic, social and environmental harm inflicted by these racial and income disparities in access to high-quality STEM education. Close these gaps starts by investing in children鈥檚 early development and ensuring that funding for early childhood education includes STEM programs 鈥� and these must include low- to no-cost options so that all families, not just the privileged, can participate. States should also allocate funds and establish public-private partnerships to provide students in K-12 schools with access to the equipment and resources needed for high-quality in-person learning, particularly students of color and girls. This includes blocks and other building materials, lab equipment, internet-connected devices and books, as well as parks, museums, science centers and STEM businesses and workplaces. Professionals in science, technology, engineering and math careers can also serve a valuable role as mentors and role models for K-12 students, as having a mentor with shared identities has been to be particularly beneficial for students of color and girls in STEM. 

Ongoing and new global challenges demand a diverse STEM workforce. If we want to make the United States a country that is healthy, prosperous and resilient for every person, no matter where they grow up, policymakers and education leaders must act now to close equity gaps in STEM education.

The new mom was suffering from postpartum depression. She had just resigned from her security job of seven years, unable to take the stress. To make extra money, she began driving for ride-sharing companies, but she had to take her infant daughter along. As she struggled to make ends meet, she faced eviction from her home.

鈥淚 was overwhelmed. I knew I couldn鈥檛 give up, but I knew I didn鈥檛 have the energy to keep putting on a brave face,鈥� said Gilbert, 32. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 have the fight in me.鈥�

Then a friend told Gilbert about a new program from Atlanta-based nonprofit Women in Technology (WIT) that could help her launch a career in information technology. The application was due in four days so Gilbert called her contacts with an urgent request for recommendations and submitted the application in time.

During the interview, she was sure the panel would not take her seriously.

鈥淗ow will you do this when you just walked away from your job?鈥� one panel member asked.

鈥淚 am going to show my daughter that she can do whatever she wants to do,鈥� Gilbert replied, crying.

A few days later, while she was driving for Uber, Gilbert got the call. She had been offered a spot in the program. 鈥淚 felt like I had hope,鈥� Gilbert said. 鈥淚 said, 鈥楾his is your light.鈥欌��

In a matter of weeks, the outbreak of a global pandemic would result in unprecedented numbers of women exiting the workforce, giving way to the lowest level of female participation in the workforce in more than three decades. Men have recouped all of their labor force losses since February 2020, but there are still nearly 1.1 million fewer women in the labor force, according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly jobs report.

Thirty years ago, a group of women launched Women in Technology because they didn鈥檛 see other women in leadership roles. At the time, they were mostly concerned with networking, said WIT board president Patti Dismukes.

As they thought about ways to get more women in the pipeline, they formed programs for girls in middle school and high school with a career interest in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics. Eventually, they would expand to college, but two years ago, they realized that to build on their mission, they would need to rethink how women were entering the field.

Job growth in STEM fields has increased 79% since 1990 while overall employment has grown 34%, based on data from Pew Research. In 2022, women are expected to hold 25% of technical roles at large tech companies despite representing 32.9% of the overall workforce, according to Deloitte Insights. Women seem to be losing out in the world of tech.

鈥淓veryone is fishing out of the same pond and colleges can鈥檛 educate and graduate people fast enough in IT,鈥� Dismukes said. 鈥淲e have to look differently at how we provide talent.鈥�

In partnership with Emory University, WIT launched a program geared toward getting Georgia鈥檚 more than 300,000 single mothers out of low paying jobs and into tech. Gilbert was among the first 20 mothers to graduate from the program.

Gilbert鈥檚 car had been repossessed because she could no longer afford to make the payments, but she was motivated. Each Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Gilbert would take Uber to Sheltering Arms where caregivers would look after her daughter while she attended class virtually. WIT covered the cost of Uber and daycare. The organization also provided laptops and internet access for all attendees and distributed food vouchers to make sure the women would have a meal.

Sometimes the course was overwhelming, said Gilbert, who had previously been interested in IT but had little formal experience. The teachers and her classmates all collaborated to make sure she understood the concepts they learned. Each week she completed several assignments for homework, and if she was unable to complete labs during class on Saturday, she had to be sure they were turned in by Sunday evening.

A week after completing the 12-week course, she had interviews with a half-dozen companies.

Dismukes said her own entry into IT was a fluke but she was good at problem-solving. At WIT, she knew she could help change lives. The program for single mothers was so successful 鈥� 100% of the 40 women who have graduated have been placed in jobs 鈥� that they launched a new program that follows a similar format but has a broader reach. The Career Connexions program is virtual and is targeted toward women nationwide who are changing careers, re-entering the workforce, never earned a college degree or want to boost their incomes and leave low-wage jobs.

It starts with a 7-week introductory course on IT basics before moving to 12 weeks of training in cybersecurity or data analytics. Women accepted into the program after a two-step interview process pay $500 for tuition. They must maintain grades of 80% or higher, attend all classes and agree to accept a job. Partner companies pay a $15,000 placement fee which covers additional costs of training. 

鈥淲e are bringing non-traditional candidates and if you don鈥檛 start thinking about non- traditional candidates you will be left behind,鈥� Dismukes said. 鈥淔inding a job is the hardest thing to do. We want women to understand it is not just getting a certification, it is the guarantee that we are going to connect you with the right companies to get the jobs.鈥�

When Gilbert was paired with Equifax, she called it 鈥渄ivine intervention.鈥� The job aligns with her skill set and her goals, she said, and in 12 weeks she went from barely scraping by to getting a 400% salary increase.

鈥淪ometimes I am in disbelief,鈥� she said. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 think you deserve these blessings but when you get them, you realize you are worthy.鈥�

Her daughter turns 3 next month and Gilbert, who works remotely, has been able to move into her own home and replace her car.

She is moving forward with the firm belief that even when setbacks seem to hold you down, you can find the light that keeps you going.

This originally appeared at  and is published here in partnership with the .

So in 2017, Winrow 鈥� a Johns Hopkins-trained pediatric neuropsychologist, PADI master scuba diver, and associate member of the Women’s Diving Hall of Fame and the American Academy of Underwater Sciences 鈥� helped launch the . The Maryland-based program, now expanding across the country, uses the world of water to break down cultural barriers in teaching Black girls as young as age 9 the possibilities of a life immersed in science, technology, engineering and math. And a life surrounded by water.

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“I was curious why there weren’t a lot of Black females in the marine sciences, and doing my research, it came down to a cultural narrative and the big thing with young Black women was getting their hair wet,” she says. “That, coupled with a misunderstanding that marine science means you are going to be around water and the cultural segregation with Blacks and swimming, it is really multi-layered about Black girls seeing themselves in those spaces. I looked at [Black Girls Dive] as an opportunity to cultivate that STEM identity so they can see themselves in that space and dispel the myths that Black girls aren’t supposed to be swimming or shouldn’t get their hair wet.”

Starting in elementary school, the foundation’s free afterschool Streams Program takes students who don’t know how to dive 鈥� or even how to swim 鈥� and turns them into certified divers by the end of their first year, starting in pools and then progressing to open water. The program follows the students through college, gaining complexity every year as mentors and instructors teach STEM skills that cover marine science, robotics, biology and geography.

“Expectations increase, difficulty levels increase, cognitive loads increase,” Winrow says. “We are skill building and providing that mentorship.” Through the program, students come to understand the physics of diving, are taught to code so they can operate underwater drones for photography and learn about geographic information system mapping while tagging sharks for tracking.

Students are also exposed to various cultures around the globe. As part of its annual “capstone” final exam, the Streams Programs brings students to locations around the world where they can integrate culture with STEM. Immediately before the pandemic, for example, participants traveled to Andros Island in the Bahamas and spent a week immersed in the culture and economy while diving the region’s marine caverns. They also studied water chemistry and reef biodiversity. Other groups of students have traveled to Egypt to dive in the Red Sea, gaining a first-hand understanding of how one of the saltiest bodies of water on Earth changes the way a diver prepares. To make that trip, students had to study Arabic and then took part in a Bedouin dinner.

For someone who was always passionate about the ocean, Violet Smith, now a senior at Oakland Mills High School in Columbia, Maryland, used the program to see if marine science was something she wanted to pursue, all while allowing her to become a certified scuba diver.

“Through this incredible program, I have been able to narrow down my interest and have decided I want to major in marine science and cartography in college,” Smith says. “One highlight of my time in this program so far was getting to scuba dive in the Georgia Aquarium with their whale sharks. We were fortunate enough to be able to spend the night at the aquarium and get a behind-the-scenes tour of the facility. It was fascinating to see how the aquarium functioned, and getting to be on the other side of the aquarium glass was an amazing experience I’ll never forget.”

Founded in Owings Mills, Maryland, the grant-funded Black Girls Dive Foundation has expanded to New Jersey and Atlanta and expects to add chapters in Seattle and San Diego next year. Currently, about 75 girls participate, screened through a rigorous application process that tests whether the program is a good fit for them. Students need recommendations from educators and must show a personality that can handle the dangers of diving.

As students progress in the program, Winrow says, they come to understand how to use their skills and interests. Mentors from both the dive and STEM parts of the program help the students explore career pathways. “They may not go into ocean science,” she says. “They may go into a STEM-adjacent career.”

“There are cultural barriers as part of that systemic barrier that I think was precluding Black women to enter the [STEM] space or young Black girls to see them in that space,” she says. Winrow wants to teach new “habits of mind, creating the opportunity to dispel the myths that Black girls aren’t supposed to be swimming or shouldn’t get their hair wet, dispelling all of that through education.”

More than four years after she and her father created an app designed to connect incarcerated parents with their children, teenage coder 鈥淛ay Jay鈥� Patton 鈥� the subject of a recent short 鈥攈as not slowed down.

When she was a toddler, Jay Jay鈥檚 father Antoine went to prison for more than seven years, leaving her and her teenage mother. Because of her personal experience with her father, Jay Jay understood the consequences and struggles of staying in communication and bonding with an incarcerated parent.

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After her father鈥檚 release, they grew close through coding and created Photo Patch, an app that allows children to communicate with incarcerated parents through photos and letters.

Now 16, Jay Jay continues to build a strong community for those who have parents and loved ones in prison.

In 2018, Jay Jay became the youth leader of Unlock Academy, an online coding school created by her father to make coding more accessible to marginalized communities such as young people of color.

The interview was edited for length and clarity.

蜜桃影视: Going back to the beginning, when you and your father were separated, what incentivized you to go into coding and to work with your father to help others? 

I knew firsthand, the struggles and how hard it was to be able to communicate with my father… So when he had this idea, it just made sense for me to help because I just knew how it felt. And I wanted to be the person who can help other kids instead of just sitting back and just watching.

What is the most important thing you鈥檇 like to come out of Photopatch?

The best thing is being able to reach across the 2.7 million kids who have an incarcerated parent and be able to bridge that gap of communication and keep that bond intact. When a parent goes to prison and they’re not with their child, it disfigures this bond they might have once had, the parents missing out on stuff, and the kid is just sad. I see this a lot with family and friends who have an incarcerated parent. It’s hard to keep that same bond. And I look at how me and my dad were able to even though he was away, we were able to still have a strong bond.

And when you and your father were not together, was there anyone else who helped you pave the way? 

I had my mom most of it. She was a single mom trying to figure it out, but she just always wanted the best for me my whole entire life. She got pregnant at 16, and had me at 17. So she was trying to pave the way for me to be a great kid. She didn’t grow up with such a great childhood. So my mom was always my best friend, and I was always her best friend, because she was young. And I was the only person she kind of had, and she was so independent. And I got a lot of those independent tendencies from her, wanting to do things on my own and wanting to flourish.

If you could go deeper into how you got into coding, not just how you were introduced but how you continued it as well?

I actually learned coding from my dad because this was something he was passionate about. And he was coming up with all these cool ideas. This is what he wanted to do, after being in prison. While in prison, he taught himself how to code. Being able to still connect with my dad and build that bond with my dad….So he was really excited that I wanted to get into this and he’s thought why not teach my own daughter these skills I know. He was always giving me little activities to do and just being a great teacher.

Did school ever foster that passion for coding? Or was it something you had to pursue out of classes and school?

… in school, there was no technology or coding classes, which drove me to want to learn more, and be somebody who can teach….other women of color, and girls, and people who don’t have the opportunity to be able to learn this skill. It was just strictly learning from my dad, we didn’t have that in school. When I was in middle school one of my teachers knew what me and my dad were doing, and she thought it was really cool, and she had a group of kids who were doing technology. And they wanted to do coding also so my dad actually came to our school and did like a whole class for coding after school. We’d have a lot of different kids, and you just never knew these kids had interest in this and, if it would have been like a whole regular class, who knows where these kids would go with it?

Could you give me updates on Unlock Academy? How’s that going and updates on that as well, and what do you hope people get out of it? 

We’ve been doing really great. We鈥檝e been getting a lot of new students. Since the whole pandemic has come, it’s been actually better because more people are at home. And they are trying to find something to do… It’s a really big effort for me to try to get women of color and women in general and kids and people who feel marginalized into the tech space so that they feel like they can do anything. The tech space is not as diverse as it can be and as it should be. So that’s really our mission for Unlock Academy, to get people who really feel like they want to do it, or that they can’t do it, and put them into this world…Don’t psych yourself out, don’t let other people kind of steer you away from it. We want to be able to be the people that are able to stem their career and get them into this world.

What do you think of the racial gender and inequity in the tech world? Why does it exist and how do you think we should fix it? 

I think it’s there because these people are not given the resources. There’s just nowhere really for them to easily obtain it…you can go to college and take classes, but it’s a lot of money…they don’t have all this kind of money to be going to take the big classes for these courses. Or even if they do, it鈥檚 just not marketed to them in a way that they can do it. There鈥檚 a stereotype around coding that it鈥檚 this crazy thing, and you have to be a genius or a mathematician鈥�.Like when you see it in movies, it looks like the matrix… When I first saw my dad doing it, I thought the same thing too at 10 years old…but when you actually get into it, it’s really not as crazy. Because my dad and I both came into the coding world, unknowingly, we understand why it seems crazy鈥�.we thought the same thing…I definitely think that’s why there’s a barrier because it’s just not marketed to our people in a way they can do it. And that’s how we plan to help is to give it to them in an affordable way, but also in a way they feel like they can do it.

Was there a moment where you realize this is really making a difference? Any moment of gratification that you can think of?

When stories started to come out, and brought a lot of awareness to us, and more people were in my DM鈥檚 or comments, people were telling me like, how much of an inspiration I am. And for me, I鈥檓 a very humble person… It’s kind of surreal for me, because I’m actually making a difference.