Coding The Future: Ugandan Women Take Refresher Classes To Lead Digital Revolution

The ReDI School of Digital Integration offers free technology classes to women with migrant and refugee backgrounds, as well as career resources such as mentorships, company visits, talent matching, and internship opportunities. More than 500 students have participated in the school's Denmark-based programs.

A digital literacy training program in Nigeria, the Gina Mata, Gina Al'umma, is bridging the country’s technology gender gap by teaching women and girls about the gig economy, STEM, graphic design, storytelling, and how to sell products online.

An organization in New Jersey called Hopeworks combines trauma-informed practices with career and life-readiness skill-learning. Teens who enter the program are equipped with a team of mentors (academic and life) to help guide them along the way, and they have a range of classes teaching tech skills such as web design or data management. Students testify to the importance of the community and the self-confidence it builds.

Deaf Technology Foundation offers weekly activities to train Deaf students in programming, robotics, and other computer science skills. The sessions, which are taught using sign language, have served roughly 1,600 students so far.

BitLab Innovation Hub offers a STEM program geared at out-of-school children, which provides hands-on training to prepare them for careers in technology. The school has trained 105 children so far.

The Osun Girls Can Code program provides young women with a week of hands-on training in website development, app development, and coding to help bridge the access gap to technology-related jobs in Nigeria.

The Yasmin El-rufai Foundation's Women Literacy Programme offers training and instruction to women who have not had the opportunity to pursue a formal education. Each cohort completes 13 months of coursework to support literacy, numeracy, oral English, public speaking, civics, and information and computer technology.

A program in Lawrence, MA has helped hundreds of families to enter the paid labor force by connecting with them via their children’s’ schools. Using a $700,000 grant, the program connects with parents when they register a child for school. Schools offer programs through resource centers that help them get the training and connections needed to find a job. Oftentimes the parents also get an actual job referral. A key component of the program is English language training as well as skills courses in healthcare, education, manufacturing, and other fields.

For people reentering society after prison, the Reentry Initiative offers them the services and support they need. The program, housed at California State San Bernardino, provides former inmates the tools they need to avoid recidivism and rebuild their lives. Some of the classes offered are computer literacy, job readiness, and anger management – but fundamental to it all is cultivating a culture of respect and community amongst participants.

At a Boston high school, a targeted approach to attract a diverse student body to computer science courses is showing signs of success. By implementing a "computer science-heavy curriculum," and applying the technology to the student's own interests, the diversity of the school is now reflected in the diversity of those enrolled in the courses.