From Camp to Conferences: Experiences in Leveraging Tech Conferences to Inspire Black and Latinx Girls to Pursue Coding and Tech Careers
Khalia M. Braswell · 2020
This experience report highlights the impact of taking Black and Latinx middle and high school girls to tech conferences. INTech Camp for Girls took five girls who previously participated in our summer camps and after school program to the #blackcomputeHER Conference in Washington, DC where they were able to network with Black women in tech, participate in a coding workshop designed just for them, and hear from Black Girls ROCK! Founder and DJ, Beverly Bond. Additionally, four IN Tech High School scholars earned an all expenses paid trip to the Facebook Achievement Summit as a result of their project submission and participation in the Facebook Engineer for the Week program. While at the summit, Team IN Tech participated in a one day hackathon where worked along Facebook engineers to build an app called “Air to Spare” using Scratch. Our team placed top eight in the country amongst twenty teams, as well as, won the Best Pitch Award. While in Silicon Valley, they were also able to meet 13 Apple Engineers, as well as, receive a tour of the Netflix HQ and speak with two engineers and a User Experience designer about what life in tech is like. This report describes how these experiences inspired IN Tech girls to pursue coding and technical careers.