Google Launches Program to Get Girls to Code

Things you love are made with code." That's the message that Google wants to send to girls.

To that end, the search motor monster has dispatched Made with Code, an activity to inspire girls to code and assemble technology.

In a post on Google's official online journal, Youtube CEO Susan Wojcicki said there are "extremely few ladies and very few youngsters" in the technology field, and that less than one percent of secondary school girls express interest in majoring in software engineering.

Bryanna Gilges, 15, (left) and Yvonne Gonzalez, 17, (right)worked at completing an exercise during a Girls Who Code class at Adobe Systems in San Jose, Calif. Google is partnering with Girls Who Code, a national non-profit organization that aims to inspire, educate and equip young women for futures in the computing-related fields.Credit: Eric Risberg/AP photo

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"This is an issue that hits home for me," Wojcicki composed. "My school-age daughter instinctively knows how to play games, watch videos and talk with friends on the web. She understands technology. Also she likes using technology. However, she never expressed any interest in making it herself."

So, Wojcicki started acquainting her daughter with coding resources and uniting her with different girls interested in software engineering.

The Made with Code activity will do this on a bigger scale for all girls.

Joining forces with the Girl Scouts, Girls Inc., Chelsea Clinton, Mindy Kaling, the MIT Media Lab, Techcrunch, Seventeen magazine, the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), and different groups, the activity aims to achieve millions of girls through various programs.

The programs incorporate coding projects, working with Girls, Inc. what's more the Girls Scouts to bring coding into their networks, and a $50 million dedication from Google in excess of three years to support initiatives to get more ladies into software engineering.

"Nowadays, coding isn't just a skill useful for working at a tech organization; designing isn't just for engineers," Wojcicki writes in her post. "Inside design. Drug. Structural planning. Music. Regardless of what a young lady dreams of doing, figuring out how to code will help her get there."

The Made with Code activity also includes feature profiles of ladies using code in their dream jobs and a resource index that parents can use to get their daughters amped up for software engineering.

Google is also working together with Donorschoose.org to remunerate teachers that support girls who take software engineering courses on Codecademy or Khan Academy. The organization is also working with the Science and Entertainment Exchange to get more depictions of female engineers on television and film.

The low numbers of ladies in technology is a worry that has been reverberated among ladies in the field.

"The numbers harm: Women constitute more than a large portion of the professional workforce, yet just a quarter of workforce in tech," Lucy Sanders, CEO and prime supporter of NCWIT, said. "It's an issue, bordering on a crisis. We won't solve it easily, or rapidly. In any case Made with Code is an extraordinary step toward reversing this pattern, and getting more girls to use coding to accomplish astonishing things by doing what they love."

The new activity builds on Google's $40 million investment since 2010 with organizations like Code.org, Black Girls Code, Technovation, and Girls Who Code.

"Coding is another education and it gives individuals the possibility to make, advance and truly change the world," Wojcicki said. "We've got to show all girls that software engineering is an essential a piece of their future, and that its an establishment to pursue their passions, regardless of what field they need to enter. Made with Code is an incredible step to doing that."