Google Bets $50 Million on Inspiring Girls to Become Coders

[Kadabra]

Fewer than one percent of high school girls express interest in becoming computer science majors in college—a dismal number that also points to why the percentage of women among computer science graduates has dropped in recent decades. Google aims to boost that number via a mentorship network aimed at getting girls interested in coding. The company plans to invest $50 million into its new "Made with Code" initiative over the next three years.

The Internet giant recently revealed that women make up just 17 percent of its tech workforce, compared with 48 percent of its non-tech workforce.

Source: IEEE Spectrum

[video=youtube;Bo11JJgj1cU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo11JJgj1cU[/video]
https://www.madewithcode.com/
Check out the site; it has some fun simple things for you to try. You can even customize a bracelet, get it 3D printed and shipped to you for free (if you live in the US).
Coding is kind of a big deal.

I work in the industry, so if you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer. :3

And a question to the community: What do you think could the reason(s) be for girls losing interest in STEM fields (CS in particular)?

 

[lovandra]

Sexism...

STEM and CS too used to man's concept and idea. I once learnt CS, coding, and basic engineering on an informal class. Everytime I made small mistakes, they said, 'what a girl', while half of man on the class also made the mistakes, which they ignored. And everytime I figured out something that potentially become awesome, I either need to work on it myself or won't be bothered.

Other group on the class was perverts, I won't talk more about them.

 

[hurristat]

More than anything I don't know if I'd describe this as a "bet".

My work is not Google -- but my building is somehow in the middle of the Googleplex in California. They've spent more on architecture and other things than they have here. The number of Teslas and sports cars owned by Google employees, cumulatively the value definitely exceeds 50 million.

I appreciate their investment in female engineers, but this is not as big of a deal as it is made out to be.

 

[hurristat]

While I appreciate you taking the facts a step forward and trying to get the bigger picture: You stating that $50 million isn't a big sum of money for Google, implying that they need to put a lot more money forward in order for this to be taken seriously by anyone (I disagree), you could have expanded it a bit more

That's not at all what I was implying. There was no implication past my statement, which was "this is not a bet." I only disagreed with the word choice, and implied nothing else.

In addition to working in the middle of the Googleplex (but not for Google) as a summer intern, I also work as a TA for the intro coding course at my university (which is a large, major university). The money is needed to help encourage girls and young women to become programmers -- of the 550 students in my course last semester, about 150-175 were women. The 50 million is no doubt appreciated.

But do not confuse my disagreement with word choice with cynicism of the decision.