SUPER GIRLS SUPER CODE
It should be no surprise that girls can write brilliant code. It should be no surprise that they love to do it. There should be no reason why girls would have a harder time gaining access to education, tools, resources and support for their tech aspirations. But the fact is, that technology is a sector that is especially gender biased and girls have a lot to overcome. That’s why the girls that have emerged as successful coders are exceptionally strong and their stories are super inspiring.
We’re highlighting two super girl coders, Amanda Southworth and Akshaya Dinesh, who won Apple's coveted WWDC Scholarship, an annual award that includes a coveted ticket to the company's worldwide developers conference and a free year of membership to the Apple Developer Program.
The 2018 WWDC gathered a group of 350 young developers. Many of them are hoping to develop apps that can make an impact in health, education, and environmental issues.
WWDC participants get access to beta software, advanced app capabilities, extensive beta testing tools, and app analytics. And, of course, they get to distribute their apps through the iOS App Store.
Many of the teenage WWDC winners have used their coding skills to create apps and companies that focus on social good. They are working to solve problems that much of Silicon Valley is missing.
Southworth, one of the youngest winners, founded Astra Labs, dedicated to changing the world by solving problems faced by marginalized communities. Dinesh founded Girls Make Apps, which aims to help close the gender gap in the tech industry with educational programs for young girls.
We met up with Southworth, Dinesh, and Apple’s Senior Director of Worldwide Developer Marketing Esther Hare, recently at the Seneca Women Conference, where they were honored alongside other notable women, including Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright.
Like many women and girls who code, Dinesh and Southworth’s interest in science and technology began early.
Dinesh, now a student at Stanford University, was first exposed to computer science right after she finished 8th grade, when she took an online course on the programming language Java. The first app she developed, as a high school freshman, was Beach Tic Tac Toe, and Android beach-themed game. She went on to develop 5 more Android apps before she won her Apple Developer membership.
When the girls see their lines of code become functional software that actually helps people in one way or another, they are inspired to continue to develop even more.
Southworth’s earliest tech memories are of playing with her father’s iPod classic, watching music videos in the backseat of his car. She became fascinated and moved on to computers, then robotics, before trying her hand at coding apps.
For Southworth, app development was a very personal mission, borne not only out of her love for tech, but also out of her issues with mental illness. She began to experience issues with depression and anxiety starting in elementary, which worsened as she grew older. She often turned to my code and music as a way to express her feelings in a “safe” way.
Southworth developed her first app, AnxietyHelper in 2015 to help others who also experienced anxiety issues. The app helped her, and many others who downloaded it, to learn about and manage panic attacks, anxiety, and depression so they could better cope and thrive.
As Southworth recounts at her TEDxPasadenaWomen RISE talk, “I discussed how I found a way to empower myself through years of suicidal thoughts and mental illness by using programming to empower my voice and opinions.”
AnxietyHelper has different tools that enable users to deal with mental health on the go -- it gamifies a lot of the aspects of therapy. For example, the “guided vent” feature helps users to talk through their feelings. Its “guided breathing” feature promotes relaxation through meditative breathing breaks. The app can also help users in crisis to locate mental health services.
Southworth’s next app, launched in late May, 2017, was Verena, an app for the LGBTQ+ community and other minorities to help in situations that put them at risk of harm, such as abuse, bullying, or racism.
Meeting Apple CEO Tim Cook was a powerful experience for Southworth. She found that he share values that were important to her, which only served to inspire her further. And, like Cook, she walks the walk. She regularly talks on the phone and exchanges messages with her Tumblr followers and those who use her apps.
Verena, which means "protector" in German, enables users to find police stations, hospitals, shelters, and other places of refuge in times of need. It also allows users to designate a list of contacts to be alerted in an emergency.
Since some people don’t yet want their families to know about their sexual identity concerns, Verena includes includes features that help users disguise the app on their phones."Incognito" mode looks like an app that provides help with math homework.
Verena will soon be available in 10 different languages.
While Southworth surely has many more apps to develop, her ultimate goal is to work in the space industry, ideally for SpaceX. We can’t wait to see what she does next!
Check out National Center for Women & Information Technology for more resources for girls and women working in tech. Check out Apple WWDC for future events, resources, and programs.
And check out Girls Who Code for more inspiring tech created by super girls. We totally love (and need) their new video.
Read more about Super Girls all this week on BeautifulNow. See Super Girls Empowered by Oceans, Beautiful Time Travel Portraits of Girls, Super Girls Become Super Women, and Super Girls & the Power of Pink. And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Wellness, Impact, Nature/Science, Food, Arts/Design, and Travel, Daily Fix posts.
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