Fast Company has a story that is about how a supermodel named Karlie Kloss created an initiative that helps young women learn how to code.
The program, called “Kode With Klossy,” has been in existence for three years, and in that time more than 400 girls have gone through summer camps on a scholarship program she developed. According to the story, “Kloss can now track where these students have ended up, and the results have been impressive. One of the original beneficiaries just won the grand prize at the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon, together with three other high school girls. (The team beat out 750 engineers with a virtual reality app that can help treat and diagnose ADHD efficiently.)
“Another young woman from the first cohort has been accepted to top computer science college programs around the country, including NYU, Stony Brook, and Columbia.
“Inspired by these successes, Kloss is expanding the Kode With Klossy program. In addition to these two-week summer camps, she has started to partner with women-led community organizations around the country to launch three-day coding workshops. She’s already collaborated with Electric Girls in New Orleans, Girls Inc. of Omaha, and CoderGals in Miami to offer “back-to-school” coding workshops to teen girls, entirely free of charge.”
You can read the entire story here.
The program, called “Kode With Klossy,” has been in existence for three years, and in that time more than 400 girls have gone through summer camps on a scholarship program she developed. According to the story, “Kloss can now track where these students have ended up, and the results have been impressive. One of the original beneficiaries just won the grand prize at the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon, together with three other high school girls. (The team beat out 750 engineers with a virtual reality app that can help treat and diagnose ADHD efficiently.)
“Another young woman from the first cohort has been accepted to top computer science college programs around the country, including NYU, Stony Brook, and Columbia.
“Inspired by these successes, Kloss is expanding the Kode With Klossy program. In addition to these two-week summer camps, she has started to partner with women-led community organizations around the country to launch three-day coding workshops. She’s already collaborated with Electric Girls in New Orleans, Girls Inc. of Omaha, and CoderGals in Miami to offer “back-to-school” coding workshops to teen girls, entirely free of charge.”
You can read the entire story here.
- KC's View:
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I know this story isn’t specifically related to retailing, but I love the notion that people and businesses can help create opportunities for people who might ordinarily not have them … especially in cases where primitive/traditional cultural attitudes might throw up barriers to accessibility.
Kloss is said to be looking for partners who will help her expand the program even more, and I think that the companies that work with her may find that they have helped create a talent pool from which they can draw, and from which they may get new and diverse ideas about how to approach business.
