Our goal is to really have young women of color embrace the tech marketplace and the tech innovation space as both leaders and creators.
It's critical for girls to see role models like myself that are in technical fields. Looking for ways to come in as speakers or do a career day, or just find a way to connect with students or invite students to their workplaces to shadow them for the day... is critically important.
As a little girl growing up in the Deep South, my mother told me that my future lay in my education. And she was right.
When you've already experienced great challenges in your career, it gives minor setbacks a different perspective.
I loved school, was an exceptional student, and found a passion for math and science that led me to Vanderbilt University, where I discovered the world of electrical engineering. I did well in college, loved the work I was doing, and soon found myself climbing the corporate ladder after graduation. I was one of the lucky ones.
For me, as a woman in one of the less diverse fields - electrical engineering, which is what I studied in college - it was hard to persist and really build a career. Some of the things I experienced were really scary, and they weren't experiences that I wanted for my daughter.
I had originally wanted to be a lawyer. Even when I went to college and majored in engineering, I still thought I'd get a law degree. Then I started taking electrical engineering classes where I saw some of the innovation happening around computers and solid-state technology in the mid '80s.
We need to really focus on getting this digital equity across the board in all of our public school systems, for both girls and boys.
For me, if a company is really committed to diversity, that means everything. That means gender diversity, that means sexual orientation for me, that means race, ethnicity.
We want to see companies making a good faith effort and putting some tangible initiatives behind their pledge for diversity.
The images you see in media are vital to impacting not just what the world sees in terms of who can be a computer scientist, who can be techie, who can be a geek or who can be a creator; it also impacts the girls and what they internalize.
While there should be collective efforts to increase tech inclusion overall, the industry must work to specifically attract and retain women of color.
While there is still certainly much more work that needs to be done, Lyft actually believes in increasing diversity and inclusion within their workforce, and also, they believe in being a strong supporter of that in the community.
You can absolutely be what you can't see! That's what innovators and disruptors do.
If technology is designed mostly by white males, who make up roughly half our population, we're missing out on the innovation, solutions, and creativity that a broader pool of talent can bring to the table.
I hope to literally change the world with Black Girls Code by changing the paradigm which produces the current monolithic ecosystem in technology.
You cannot possibly be reaching the needs of your consumers when the makeup of your company is not reflective of the community you serve.
We really pride ourselves on the notion that what makes our program special is that we really do our very best to make sure that everything we do is culturally responsive and relevant.
Girls are almost always socialized to be perfect: 'Smile, do well in school, don't take too many risks.'
I do believe that most startups who develop applications and digital products design 'towards the middle.' By this, I mean they design their products to reach the broadest consumer base possible, which is a sound strategy in some respects.
