Thu, 08/26/2021
This post is a summary of Season 2, Episode 3 of The Nebraska Governance & Technology Center’s (NGTC) Podcast Series, Tech Refactored. In this episode, host NGTC Executive Director Elsbeth Magilton was joined by Aakriti Agrawal, Data Governance Analyst at Ameritas, and Justin Stark Senior Software Engineer at the Arbor Day Foundation. Agrawal and Stark are Co-Founders of Girls Code Lincoln, and they joined Magilton to discuss their program that “teaches girls about technology through creativity, community, collaboration, and confidence.”
The phenomenon of women being underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) has been well documented for some time, but, while strides have been made towards achieving gender parity in the STEM workforce, gender equity remains elusive. Girls Code Lincoln takes the approach that, in order to reach young women and encourage them to pursue careers in STEM fields, you need to reach them early in their academic careers and build a community that supports them in pursuit of their goals.
As Stark explains, “our mission is about teaching girls how to code, but not just to code.” We teach them leadership skills, we teach them confidence and whole bunch of other things.” His involvement started when a few people in Lincoln wanted to start Girls Who Code clubs, a national chain that enables local chapters to form easily and provides them with a lot of resources and marketing products to help clubs get going. Initially the group worked in middle schools, but as they continually found themselves fighting middle school administration, they decided to form their own nonprofit organization to help with fundraising and “be a little bit more locally focused.”
As Agrawal explains, Girls Code Lincoln didn’t need to create an interest in STEM fields amongst girls, that interest was already there. What girls interested in pursuing careers in STEM needed was a community that could encourage and empower them. They also needed opportunities for hands-on experience, and to connect younger women with older role models who could show them being interested in science and tech could be cool, and that there was indeed a path forward for people like themselves in those fields.
Traditionally programs that attempt to get kids interested in tech have been somewhat male-dominated. Agrawal gives the example of a robotics camp that she used to teach at, “we taught robotics to kids - it was 20 kids in a class and usually it was about 18 boys.” Once she created a robotics club that was just for girls, the clubs would fill up - further demonstrating that the issue has never been one of interest, but instead of community. Research shows that girls often lose interest in technology around fourth or fifth grade, so Stark and Agrawal wanted to create a program that would target girls at this pivotal point in time, keeping them engaged and developing an inclusive community that would support them as they went on in their education.
Many of the barriers for young women interested in science and technology are based on societal expectations. “In order to be successful in STEM, there is a lot of trial and error in the process,” Agrawal explains.” “Girls are societally taught that everything they do has to be perfect; has to be right the first time. Boys tend to be more risk-takers. They’re taught to climb to the top of the jungle gym instead of being told to be careful. So we really try to enforce in our girls that it's okay to be wrong, and it's ok to ask for help, and it's ok to try things.”
A major pivot point in the history of Girls Code Lincoln was their decision to break from the national Girls Who Code organization and pursue a more local focus. As Stark explains, Girls Who Code has a national emphasis that focuses on opening as many chapters across the country as rapidly as possible. Girls Code Lincoln pursued a more narrow, deeper approach that would allow them to fundraise locally. As a 501(c)(3) organization they are able to receive funding from a number of local organizations and thereby put on significantly more workshops. The organization is now 100% locally funded and has no employees; everyone who works for the organization does so on a volunteer basis.
Operating an organization like Girls Code Lincoln requires a lot more than just female coders. “All of our marketing is done through volunteers. Our finance, our board members are all volunteers, Justin and I are both volunteers. Every single aspect of running a non profit - very similar to running a corporation - we run that.” In terms of volunteers, the program relies heavily on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “A lot of our volunteers are students, and they’ve been a huge asset to us. And unlike some organizations that rely on volunteers to teach students, Girls Code Lincoln doesn’t necessarily rely on people whose children are in the program, so they don’t lose interest as they otherwise might as their children age-out of the program.
Like so many other programs, the Covid-19 pandemic was an inflection point for Girls Code Lincoln. As Agrawal explained, “pre-pandemic, we were running weekend clubs. So every Sunday we would have 50 girls come into a coworking space in the Haymarket and learn how to code. These girls are 4th to 9th grade. And there is a lot of physical contact because they like to hug each other and play games. Not the best when March 2020 hits.” The group also had fundraising opportunities on deck that relied on in person contacts that had to be cancelled as well. So they quickly had to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new plan on how to proceed.
The principle concern the group had, beyond of course the paramount concern of keeping everyone safe, was that the young women would lose the emotional connections that the group had so assiduously sought to build. They also sought to keep their volunteer base connected and engaged based on different issues they were facing in the last year and half to let them know that they were cared for and that they could come to the group if they needed anything.
Although Girls Code Lincoln was limited in what it could pursue during the pandemic, they came up with a number of ways to try to keep their girls engaged. First they hosted an online speaker series that brought in women in STEM to speak, to provide role models and reinforce the idea that careers in STEM are possible for women. Secondly they partnered with Lincoln City Libraries to put together a reading list that taught students about the impact that women have had in STEM.
The organization took some lasting lessons away from the pandemic that they intend to retain in the future. For example, they will continue with the speaker series because they felt that providing examples of successful women in STEM was an important piece of the puzzle that was previously lacking. They also decided that their board meetings would continue to be held virtually going forward - because of the competing time pressures facing board members, it just made sense for them to be able to access the meetings from whatever circumstances in which they might find themselves. And lastly, the break allowed them to consider the unique role that Girls Code Lincoln plays - there are a number of other organizations that provide leadership training, and Lincoln Public Schools has expanded its tech offerings. But Girls Code Lincoln wants to remain, at its core, what the name describes - an organization teaching girls to code, and empowering them to build confidence and pursue STEM careers in the process.
Tags: Tech Refactored Review
