Code First Girls
| Company type | Not for Profit Social Enterprise |
|---|---|
| Industry | High tech startups |
| Founded | 2012 |
| Founders | Alice Bentinck, Matthew Clifford |
| Headquarters | London , England |
Area served | United Kingdom |
Key people | Amali de Alwis, CEO |
| Website | www.codefirstgirls.org.uk |
Code First: Girls is a Not for Profit Social Enterprise that trains women in IT skills and helps companies to develop more female‑friendly recruitment policies.[1]
The organisation promotes gender diversity and female participation in the technology sector by offering free and paid training and courses for students and professional women.[2] It also supports businesses to train staff and develop talent management policies.[3]
As of 2018, Code First: Girls is reported to have provided in excess of £3 million worth of free coding courses to more than 5,500 women since 2013. [4]
In 2017, Code First: Girls announced the launch of the "Code First: Girls 20:20 campaign" with the aim to "train 20,000 women to code for free by the end of 2020". [5] As of 2018, Code First: Girls have announced "2020 campaign partnerships" with the following companies: Bank of America Merrill Lynch; Goldman Sachs; KKR; Trainline; and OVH. [6] The organisation announced Baroness Lane-Fox and Dame Stephanie Shirley as supporting the campaign as ambassadors. [7]
Programs
According to the Code First: Girls website, the organisation offers free and paid for in-person coding courses for women, as well as for companies across the UK and Ireland [8]
Free Community Courses
Code First: Girls runs free part-time coding courses for female/non binary identifying young individuals across the UK and Ireland.
Individual joining for courses at a university are required to be a student at the host university. General coding courses are also delivered at corporate locations and are open to women with the following eligibility: Aged between 18-23; or Aged 18+ and currently studying; or Aged 18+ and completed their studies in the past 2 years. [9]
Code First: Professionals
Code First: Professionals women's courses are fee paying. These courses are targeted at female professionals and teach participants to make a website from scratch. [10]
History
Code First: Girls began in late 2012 as "a nine-week, free, part-time course to get female graduates from all walks of life not only interested in coding, but also better equipped to contribute to technical discussions in high-tech businesses".[11]
Founded by Alice Bentinck and Matthew Clifford, Code First: Girls was created they recognised a lack of female applications for their pre-seed investment programme Entrepreneur First (EF) .[12][13][14] EF supports the development of Code First: Girls.[15]
Bentinck claims that of the first cohort to complete Code First: Girls training, more than half of the women participants now self-identify as "technical" or working in software-development roles.[16]
Amali de Alwis was announced as first Chief Executive Officer of the organisation on Wednesday 8 April 2015, taking over from Bentinck and Clifford. [17]
Code First: Girls was included in the UK Government's "UK Digital Strategy" policy paper 2017 as a "programmes doing valuable and innovative work to help more women into tech". [18]
Awards
In 2016 Code First: Girls was nominated for a National Diversity Award.[19][20]
In 2017 Code First: Girls won "e-Skills Initiative of the Year" at the Information Age "Women in IT awards". [21]
References
- ^ Thomas, Kim (9 July 2018). "Women in tech: the IT firms tackling the gender imbalance". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
- ^ "Code First: Girls". Code First: Girls. Retrieved 2016-10-11.
- ^ McDonald, Clare (29 June 2016). "To create more female engineers, we need to create more strong female role models". ComputerWeekly.com. Retrieved 11 October 2016.
- ^ "The importance of getting more women into tech". itproportal.com. 12 April 2018. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
- ^ "Code First: Girls launches campaign to teach 20,000 young women to code for free by end of 2020, secures funding from KKR, OVH and others and opens crowdfund campaign". Code First: Girls. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
- ^ McDonald, Clare (3 April 2018). "How Code First: Girls uses partnerships to teach girls to code". computerweekly.com. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
- ^ Lee, Alex (7 March 2018). "Code First Girls wants to teach 20,000 women to code by 2020 - and it could give the UK an edge after Brexit". alphr.com. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
- ^ "Courses we offer". Code First: Girls. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
- ^ "Free Community Courses". Code First: Girls. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
- ^ "Code First: Professionals Women". Code First: Girls. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
- ^ "Girls-only coding class looks to increase female tech startup presence1".
- ^ "Inspirational Woman: Alice Bentinck | Co-Founder of Entrepreneur First and Code First: Girls". 2016-04-29. Retrieved 2016-10-11.
- ^ "ELLE's Tech Titans: Alice Bentinck". ELLE UK. 2016-09-19. Retrieved 2016-10-11.
- ^ "Lessons from running a start-up accelerator". Retrieved 2016-10-11.
- ^ "London's startup scene is getting more sophisticated". The Economist. 2016-03-10. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2016-10-11.
- ^ "Lessons from running a start-up accelerator". Retrieved 2016-10-11.
- ^ "Amali de Alwis joins Code First: Girls as CEO". Code First: Girls. Retrieved 2016-10-11.
- ^ "2. Digital skills and inclusion - giving everyone access to the digital skills they need". gov.uk. 1 March 2017. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
- ^ "I have just voted for Code First: Girls for Community Organisation at The National Diversity Awards, click here to vote for this person". nominate.nationaldiversityawards.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-10-11.
- ^ "Register Your Interest". Code First: Girls. Retrieved 2016-10-11.
- ^ "Women in IT Awards 2017: winners revealed". information-age.com. 26 January 2017. Retrieved 20 November 2018.