Girls Who Code gave high schoolers a chance to use their new skills this summer

A seven-week program held in D.C. helped nearly two dozen high school girls gain coding experience this summer.

Software.org: The BSA Foundation and Girls Who Code partnered to offer an immersion program for local students. In all, 23 participants got experience with HTML, CSS, and Python, according to info from D.C.–based Software.org detailing one of two Girls Who Code programs in D.C. this summer. They also put the languages to work to build apps and websites, as well as robotics projects. In July, the program also included a hackathon in which students dug into issues and gave tech presentations to members of Congress.

Our engineers had a fantastic day with @GirlsWhoCode yesterday as they used Quorum to "hack" their way to a better Congress. Thanks to @BSA_Foundation and @attdcforum for helping to put on a great event. We can't wait to see what they do with their coding skills in the future! pic.twitter.com/Q1QrR6XXi4

— Quorum (@QuorumAnalytics) July 25, 2018

“Most of these young women have little to no experience in coding when they first start the class, but they come away feeling confident enough to call themselves ‘coders’ and ‘programmers,’ and see a future in tech,” Chris Hopfensperger, Executive Director of Software.org: the BSA Foundation, said in a prepared statement.

Participants presented coding projects at a graduation ceremony held August 9. At the event, they also heard from Twitter Head of Global Communications Elaine Filadelfo, who gave the keynote speech.