In 1995, 37% of all computer scientists were women. Today, they make up only 24% of the pool, demonstrating a pronounced gender gap in technology.
So in 2012, Girls Who Code was founded to help change that outage—with the goal of building the largest pipeline of future female engineers in the United States.
One way the organization is doing this is through its signature Summer Immersion Program, a free computer science course for girls going into their sophomore, junior or senior year of high school.
And this summer, for the first time, Johnson & Johnson hosted 19 students at its campus in Raritan, New Jersey, where they learned skills like the basics of developing a mobile application with the help of IT leaders from across the company.
“Johnson & Johnson chose to participate in the Girls Who Code Summer Immersion Program because the statistics for girls in technology are still not where they need to be,” says Crystal Cortacans, Senior Manager, IT Digital Marketing, Johnson & Johnson. “We want to be part of the solution.”
In honor of Code Day—when, for 24 hours, students around the world get together to build new apps and games—check out this video that follows some of the participants throughout their Summer Immersion Program adventures at Johnson & Johnson.
