Coding Workshop at Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 School

 

On Thursday, December 13th, the middle school girl club at Buena Vista Horace Mann, Tech Chicas, hosted “Breakfast with Women in Tech and Engineering” for all girls at Buena Vista Horace Mann. This event powered by IGNITE! There were 78 excited girls in attendance. The students were greeted with raffle prizes for asking and answering statistic questions about women in the tech industry. Then students were engaged in a coding activity where they use color blocks of code in HTML to create their own website. This ColorCODE activity was facilitated by B Cavello from Phenomenal Media who also worked on the game Exploding Kittens. Students were then encouraged to ask 4 amazing women in the tech industry questions. The panel encouraged our middle school girls to pursue a degree in computer science, apply for a tech job even if they feel they don’t qualify for such a position, and invited students to explore other career options. The panelists were very informative and inspiring for our young girls.

Thank you to Josie Chand from SF Environment for tutoring during the workshop, B Cavello for facilitating the workshop, Allison Ryan, VP of R&D at Natera, Nikki Kiga, Software Producer at Obscura Digital, and Sajida Kaliyadan, Head of Buyer Experience at Atlassian for telling your story!

Laura Ramirez

IGNITE Advisor

Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 School

Here’s what the students had to say:

“It does not matter how many boys there are in your job, it matters what you like.” – Grade 6
“Women can do anything they want. It inspired me that I can do anything.” – Grade 6
“I enjoyed listening to the 4 panelists because they all had very different stories to share and different ways they got to where they are now.” – Grade 7
“I was inspired by how women take a stand to change woman history!” – Grade 7

“I liked making my own website. It inspired me because it was cool to learn how it works.” – Grade 7

“This event inspired me to open my view about art and expand it to science.” – Grade 7
“It inspired me to pay more attention to math and science and stuff!” – Grade 7