Monthly Archives: April 2013

Code Girls Launched at GirlsinICT Celebrations

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To say that I had waited for this day with baited breath would be a GROSS understatement! I scratched my head trying to figure out what I would not have found boring in High School but I kept drawing up blanks.

We were set to celebrate the International Girls in ICT day with the beautiful girls at Kyambogo College School by launching Code Girls. An initiative that teaches high school girls about creativity, mobile & web application development as well as mentoring & career guidance sessions.

Alas, the day was finally upon us – After 15 minutes of sitting in the staff room waiting for their exam to end, we walked into a computer laboratory filled with a little over 60 girls. The girls were a mixture of seniors from different classes.

We started out the day with introductions, about WITU and AFCHIX (Another women’s initiative about Women in Technology) – Together, we chatted about our experiences, even answered questions concerning applying for Tech related courses at university.

Several of the girls were actually considering taking Information Technology at University level but were discouraged because they were doing Arts-subjects and had been informed that IT was only for students doing Science-Subjects. We were able to give guidance concerning this issue.

After the Intros, Q&A’s we began to dig into basic web development! When asked if anyone wanted to learn how to build a website, everyone raised their hands! Today, I learned that there is nothing more fulfilling than hearing the collected “Aha” from a group of girls whose code was working as expected.

The session took about one and a half hours, reactions ranged from “Yays” to hands raised and voices announcing how they needed help – their code was acting strange. They quickly learned about opening and closing tags as well as changing background color, font color and font size. They also noticed the importance of using the correct syntax.

Becky and Agatha, two beautiful girls who sat at the front and were continuously heard asking questions both said they loved the session and wanted to keep learning more. Several of the girls said that they were definitely going to share what they had learned with their friends and sisters. We also discovered a blogger among the girls, but alas, she was extremely shy and asked not to be photographed.

At the end of the session, we had a snacks together and also had a fun photo shoot with the girls.

If you would like to Code Girls to come to your school or your sister’s school, please send us an eMail at [email protected]

Checkout the pictures of our amazing day - https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.432192350209924.1073741825.148662568562905&type=1&l=f05f73f2ef

Code Girls Launch: Kyambogo College School

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On 27th April 2013, Women in Technology Uganda, WITU, will be celebrating with the rest of the world, the annual Girls In ICT day at Kyambogo College School. A high school found in one of the suburbs of Kampala.

We will be launching CODE GIRLS, a new program that will introduce the awesomeness of digital media to girls in high school. The program will be mainly introductory to give the girls a taste of what majoring in Technology will be like.

On top of introducing things like coding and web design, there will also be a short career guidance session done. The school computer laboratory is expected to hold about 60-80 girls.

We are very excited about the opportunity to talk to young fresh minds and to help in their molding process. One of WITU’s core objectives is to encourage more girls to join the ICT sector in Uganda, and we feel that CODE GIRLS is one way we can see this happen.

If you would like Code Girls to come to your school or you know some schools that would be interested, please send us an eMail at [email protected]