Kate Kirwin is the founder of “She Codes;”, and a passionate advocate for the inclusion of women in STEM whom I’ve had the pleasure to interview recently on the Changing The Game Podcast.
The West, recently described Kate’s mission as follows: “Kate Kirwin likes to imagine a world where young girls aspire to be programmers in the same way they might dream of being ballerinas”.
With this in mind we had an incredibly productive talk about inclusion, equality and the challenges she has faced while working to make her vision a reality and change the game.
“We’re really trying to explore those stereotypes about women in technology”, Kate states as she reminisces about She Codes’s upcoming six years birthday, and the cultural barriers that women face in STEM.
Kate doesn’t really have a technological background, something that she attributes to the fact that it was never really posed to her as an option, a problem that seems to be widespread across the globe.
In general, STEM fields, (that being science, technology, engineering and mathematics) are rarely portrayed as places for women, or somewhere women can flourish, which keeps young girls from even considering such areas for their future.
That is, of course, when people don’t just flat out say that these career paths are not for women, because they are not “safe”, a fallacy that She Codes has dedicated itself to debunk.
The absence of women in STEM fields is something I was able to notice for myself as it has always been hard to find women candidates, and no wonder as only 26.7%, of all workers in this market are female.
When I asked what we could do to change this reality, Kate mentioned the importance of making that invitation to young girls as so many of them are told no by counselors, by their parents and so many people that shut that door for them.
So holding that door open for these women, and helping them make a foothold in STEM, is one of the best ways to change things, and the main concern of She Codes.
Kate attests to the importance of this invitation herself, as she recalls how her background was in events and that she only awoke to her interest in technology while working on an event called Space Keep in Perth, Australia.
“I didn’t know any of that, I knew events, and I just got really curious. Do I find out what our members are doing, how do I find out what the startups are doing, how do I speak the same language as them”
So, she did what most people do at an event and attended as many panels as she could, but at tech events she started to feel uncomfortable at how the environment was not welcoming to her “as a woman or as a beginner”.
From there on she started to participate on more and more groups to learn coding, until she was approached with an invitation start a community dedicated to helping women to get into codeing.
Today, She Codes has...
