Black CodHER: Women in Tech Defying Race & Gender Roles
As an organization whose mission is to provide quality educational opportunities while being as inclusive as possible, we are keen to learn from other women champions in the field. Charlene Hunter is one of those women.
In her 10 years of experience in the tech industry, it was rare that Hunter would encounter other women of colour. Inspired by the 2017 biographical drama Hidden Figures, a film detailing the black female mathematicians who acted as pioneers to NASA during the space race, Hunter created her organization Coding Black Females. The focus of the non-profit is to create & further opportunities for black women in tech, forming connections and empowering one another all while learning relevant skills.
As if this wasn't enough girl power, the organisation has teamed up with NIYO enterprise, another start up created by two black women, aimed at building female entrepreneurs and encouraging their success in creating social enterprises. Together, the organizations bring us Black Cod(her). Black Codher runs a coding 'boot camp' currently taking place in the UK that secured an impressive £250,000 in funding from the West Midlands Combined Authority Digital Retraining fund. With this funding, the program will teach black women 18 years or older, with little to no tech background, the skills necessary to build a successful career in the tech industry. The program will consist of two evening courses per week, over the course of 30 weeks, that will cover software programming, data management, design thinking, and artificial intelligence.
It is no secret that women are underrepresented in the tech industry, especially women of colour. This is often due to a lack of encouragement and a lack of role models. To counteract this, the program also includes "empowerment days" designed to inspire and encourage the learners by meeting with black women in different tech roles. As American activist for children’s rights, Marian Wright Edelman once said, “You can’t be what you can’t see”. Originally, the program only intended to take on 40 women, but after an astonishing 300 applications were received, 50 women will now be participating.
Finally, an after program will support all of the participants in securing jobs with partner employers once they have completed their training, guaranteeing them a starting salary of more than £30,000 annually. All of the women participating are either unemployed or earn less than £20,000 per year, so this is certainly an investment worth making.
Hopefully we can realize the true potential of coding programs based on the overwhelming interest Black Codher has received. It is apparent that the issue of disproportionately low representation of minority women in tech is not an issue of ability nor of interest. At CODE, we will be keeping our eyes peeled for more organizations like ours—contributing to a worldwide system of programs dedicated to expanding and offering opportunities to all individuals, especially those who are underrepresented in the tech industry.
