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Girls code the future: Inside Amazon's AI workshop
Discover how a groundbreaking non-profit is empowering young girls to break tech industry stereotypes through hands-on coding workshops at Amazon in Seattle.
SEATTLE - More than 40 girls learned how to code at Amazon in Seattle over the weekend. The non-profit organization Kode with Klossy hosted its free two-day introductory coding workshop.
The group of 13-to-18-year-olds learned about artificial intelligence, machine learning and what it takes to build a website.
Local perspective:
Aditi attended the camp when she was in high school. She returned this weekend as an instructor assistant and a freshman in college.
"We don’t really have as much representation and spaces where we get to explore our stem principles, so this is a really unique space for us to express our voices and ideas and, I think especially for young girls who might feel those stereotypes in high school or middle school, this is a way for them to break out of that," Aditi said.
She’s referring to the gender gap in the tech industry. Kode with Klossy CEO Osi Imeokparia told FOX 13, the non-profit was founded 10 years ago to address that gap. It's something she has firsthand experience with.
What they're saying:
"I’ve lived all the journey from being a young person who was curious about technology to eventually being a director of product for Google and I think that journey is what fuels me in my role today," Imeokparia said.
"The biggest hope we have is that they walk out feeling confident that they can do something hard, that this thing that everybody is talking about on the news in abstract form-AI everywhere-is really now something that they have tangible experience with."
She hopes the program will generate a newfound curiosity and passion that will last beyond the keystroke.
"At the end of the day, technology helps create opportunity and solve problems, and we think everybody should be part of that conversation," Imeokparia said.
She adds, in the foundation’s 10 years, 11,000 students have been through programs like this weekend’s. A two-week summer coding camp is scheduled for July in Seattle. All the programming is free, according to Imeokparia.
The Source: Information for this article comes from original FOX 13 Seattle reporting.
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