Changemakers in Programming: in this new blog series we will be focusing on organizations, associations and people who have had and/or continue to have a positive impact on the tech world and the world of programming!

For this first post, we chose to write about Women Who Code (WWCode for short). We have been following them for quite some time now and we believe that they’re pushing for the right ideas!

WWCode is a groundbreaking nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring more women to learn how to write code. They provide important services and resources to help women pursuing careers in tech.

Members of WWCode benefit from training, professional evaluations, mentorship, scholarships, and meetups hosted around the world. They’re a relatively young organization, but have already put up some impressive numbers:

A membership tally of 170,000,

More than 8,000 free events hosted around the world, and

Offices in 20 countries.

WWCode is led by CEO, and Board Chair, Alaina Percival — an accomplished tech speaker, expert on diversity in tech, and venture/angel investor. The organization also has an impressive roster of board members and advisors who hold senior positions at the world’s top software companies, and is supported by Google, Nike, VMWare, and more.

The Women Who Code Mission

Their mission is to inspire women to excel in technology careers. They’re aiming to help usher in a world in which women are proportionally represented as technical leaders, executives, founders, VCs, board members, and software engineers.

The problem WWCode is trying to solve isn’t just about getting more women to enroll in computer science and related degree programs. Another aspect of the challenge is to help women with relevant degrees get their foot in the door AND continue to do fulfilling work.

Of course, the gender pay gap is another huge problem. WWCode conducted a survey on Equal Pay Day, which revealed that one quarter of women in tech have left a job because they were not being paid the same as men in equal positions.

What’s more, 60% of respondents believed that their current employers were paying women less than men.

WWCode is working to close this gap by working directly with companies to help them create processes and policies that ensure fair and transparent hiring practices. One of their success stories so far is VMWare, which has successfully met their gender representation targets in 2018.

How WWCode is changing the world of programming