Vodacom says this year’s instalment of its “Code Like A Girl” programme was oversubscribed by 40%, with more than 1 000 young girls registering to participate.
As a result, plans are underway to run another edition before the end of this year, says the mobile operator, which only had space for 600 young girls.
Vodacom notes the increased demand for the programme signals that more young girls to enter the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.
Njabulo Mashigo, human resources director for Vodacom South Africa, says: “The level of interest that we saw during this year tells us that our programme is making good progress in popularising coding among young girls and that there is a huge interest out there from young girls to explore careers that require coding skills to help them get a start in STEM fields.”
Introduced by Vodacom in 2017, the programme is aimed at girls aged between 14 and 18, with the hopes to encourage them to develop an interest in STEM careers by learning how to code.
It has been rolled out in SA, Mozambique, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Lesotho. In SA, Vodacom says it has trained 1 332 girls and has covered close to 100 schools, since the launch of the initiative.
According to the telco, this year’s programme, which ran during the spring school holidays (4 to 7 October), also attracted girls from countries outside of SA. It attracted 25 girls from Botswana, Albania, Kenya, DRC, Lesotho and Mozambique.
During the week-long training course, learners were exposed to an introduction to coding, robotics and development programmes, including HTML, CSS, GitHub and Version Control, and JavaScript.
“These initiatives have the potential to significantly close the gender gap and inspire young girls to pursue STEM careers in the digital era towards which we are transitioning. I believe that we can ultimately change the outlook of the number of females in science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers, enabling those women to become pioneers within the technology space in a few years to come,” concludes Mashigo.
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