The computer science gender gap struggle in Silicon Valley is real. A mere 17 percent of Google’s tech workers are women. It’s 15 percent at Facebook. Similar stats can be found at most of the larger tech companies. Girls Who Code is trying to reverse those digits with an announcement of a major expansion in partnerships today. The non-profit organization that aims to close the gender gap in technology will grow its Summer Immersion Program from 19 sessions reaching 375 girls to 60 sessions reaching 1,200 girls this year.
President Obama was the first Commander-in-Chief to write a line of computer code, after learning the basics of JavaScript on Monday. The lesson put him among the ranks of some 53 million students who “coded” somewhere in the world during the past year. But right now, women only represent 12 percent of all computer science graduates — a drop from 37 percent in 1984. One woman is on a mission to change those numbers and get more than a million girls to code over the next 10 years, reports CBS News correspondent Jericka Duncan. “I turn on the television and I see no girls who look like me that are coders or hackers or engineers, and girls are watching and they’re listening, and they’re saying, ‘You know what? I’m gonna opt-out.'” recalled Reshma Saujani, founder of “Girls Who Code.” She said to change that, technology has to be cool — and the work, fun. Saujani visited a Girls Who Code club in Harlem, where students are learning to create their own video games, where she told CBS News that her reasons for spreading the gospel of coding and promoting the skill set are simple.