According to a 2009 study conducted by the National Science Foundation, only 12 percent of engineers are U.S. women while only 2 percent of engineers are women from underrepresented minorities. It’s a fact that greatly bothered Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code, a program she founded with the idea of teaching a million girls to code by 2020. The Village of Garden City is getting a taste of this gender activism because of the involvement of Garden City High School student Dessie DiMino, who became the point person in helping form the local club and even found a venue for it to operate out of in the shape of the Garden City Public Library. For this 10-week program, 35 girls in grades six through 12 have enrolled and are learning 40 hours of introductory college-level coding skills and are even collaborating on building an educational game as a final project. With the help of American Express executive Anna Korsakova, who is volunteering to teach the class given her 10 years of information technology experience, DiMino is serving as a teaching assistant and providing the groundwork to help create a future generation of female computer engineer that will hopefully and significantly increase those aforementioned demographic percentages.
—Dave Gil de Rubio
