Dozens of teenage girls from across the country filled Expedia’s downtown office this summer to learn about the technology industry from the inside, as part of the travel company’s first Girls Who Code program.
“This is something that I really wish that I had had when I was in high school… Programs like this, that start earlier and capture girls before they enter into higher education, are so important,” said Kristen Weber, principal program manager for Expedia’s eCommerce Platform Technology, and member of the Expedia team that connected with Girls Who Code.
For the first time, past immersion program participants are continuing to break into the tech industry in a brand new apprenticeship program, held at Expedia.
The apprenticeship program is growing on Girls Who Code’s preexisting immersion programs, in which teenage girls receive daily classroom instruction, workshops, demonstrations and talks with industry leaders.
Girls Who Code is a national nonprofit that was founded in 2012 to combat the low rates of women pursuing technology-related degrees and careers.
The organization focused on encouraging high school-aged girls to pursue computer science and other technology careers, as that is where they saw an interest drop-off. Between 1984 and 2014, the number of women graduating with computer science degrees dropped 19 percent. Only 0.4 percent of today’s teenagers express interest in computer science degrees, according to data provided by the organization.
The 20 immersion program participants at Expedia this summer at taking courses in robotics, graphics and animation, mobile app development, accessibility, user interface and other topics.
Expedia is one of six Girls Who Code partners in the greater Seattle area, including Amazon, Microsoft and Google, the latter of which is where Expedia team members say the idea arose for them.
A handful of female Expedia employees were invited to the graduation for Google’s 2014 class, among them Expedia.com Director of Technology Elena Camerini, whose daughter had taken part in Google’s Summer Immersion Program.
Camerini couldn’t help but notice that after her daughter’s program ended, there weren’t many other opportunities in a similar vein. After conversations with Girls Who Code, and agreeing to host a Summer Immersion Program, Expedia built upon the preexisting opportunities and created the apprenticeship program.
“I really think Elena and the other team members were wanting more for the girls who have participated in past programs, entering college, and getting to know what its like to work in engineering,” said Weber.
In this new pilot program created by the team at Expedia, 10 girls who previously participated in the immersion program will be working in and among Expedia’s coders and tech teams.
In the eight years she has worked at Expedia, Weber said this year’s Girls Who Code partnership is the first initiative of its kind that she has heard of, but it mimics the company’s commitment to diversity.
“We’re really focused on fostering opportunities for women in tech, so we do focus a lot on closing the gender divide, but we’re also focusing on closing the opportunity divide,” she said.
Only 26 percent of professional computing occupations in the U.S. workforce were held by women in 2014, according to the National Center for Women and Information Technology. The center also found that women made up less than 20 percent of computer and information sciences bachelor’s degree recipients in 2013.
Many companies with low numbers of female employees have undertaken efforts to improve workforce diversity.
For example, women make up 30, 16 and 10 percent of the technology workforce at Google, Facebook and Twitter, respectively. Each of these companies have publicly stated missions to increase diversity, and are currently hosting Girls Who Code summer programs.
This year’s program will run for seven weeks through Aug. 17. The applications for next year’s program will be available later on the Girls Who Code website.
