2022 Impact Award Recipient Spotlights

In 2022, the NCWIT AspireIT program awarded 50 inspiring Impact Award recipients in the Aspirations in Computing (AiC) community. To celebrate and amplify recognition of their remarkable achievements, AiC also showcased a series of videos recorded by the award recipients. In these videos, each NCWIT AspireIT Impact Award recipient shares, in their own words, what drove them to become changemakers. You can find links to watch or read the captions below, and follow NCWITAIC on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for more. You can also find NCWIT on LinkedIn, and learn more about each of the 2022 awardees here.

Watch the NCWIT AspireIT Impact Award Recipient Spotlight Videos shared on Sept. 8, 2022

Angela Yang: “Last semester, after hearing how few schools could afford to teach their students computer science, I set up the Programming Pals class at LAPD Devonshire PALS, a center that serves low-income students. I was overwhelmed with joy to see the web development lessons I spent months preparing pay off as our students excitedly showed us the websites they’d made. The PALS director then recommended my classes to El Centro Del Pueblo, a social-services organization for at-risk youth in downtown L.A. There, I’ve taught web development, scratch games, and Python projects as I watch my students grow. After being given $1,000 from the LA Promise Fund, as project manager I put it towards starting my own GirlsBuild team, G4CSE – or, Girls for Computer Science Equality. I gathered a group of 15 diverse girls, and we hosted Highlander Hacks; a two-day virtual hackathon for girls and non-binary individuals. When reading over the feedback, one student said, ‘I love the ambiguity of coding, as well as how you set up hacking workshops for people of all coding experience levels,’ which made me extremely happy, because that kind of accessibility and interest is exactly what I was hoping to foster with the event.”

Anika Suman: “Throughout my STEM experiences, though, I’ve been met with quite a lack of diversity within the receiving population. The proportion of females and other genders to males always seems to falter, and I rarely find a postdoc mentor who is female. Even my own Code Club started with 30 people, and I was the only female. So, I took it upon myself to find ways to get more females and other marginalized populations involved with STEM – and specifically, my passion for code, AI, and machine learning. Last year, I held code camps through my Code Club, exposing mostly females from Title 1 schools to web app and game development, with over 100 participants and 100 more on the waitlist. I was only fueled to continue. As president of my math club, I held a statewide competition to allow similar student populations to prepare for and compete in a low-stakes contest for experience, and to gauge interest in math application.”

Anna Rosner: “My inspiration from this is really to show girls and everyone else that we have so much talent to bring to STEM, that we belong here, and that our work is incredible; really showing everyone that this is a place for them, that STEM exists, and it’s ready for them. I was inspired to do this from the outreach events that I participated in at a young age. I was always drawn to the ones with circuits and robotics. I did one with squishy circuits, which uses conductive dough. Now, I’ve actually run that outreach event myself using squishy circuits. So, my goal is to find the girls who haven’t been exposed to STEM yet, and show them that they already have all the talent and skills that they need, but exposing them to that spark and inspiration helps them be the engineers and computing experts of tomorrow.”

Catherine Yue: “I’m mostly dedicated to providing CS opportunities to middle and elementary schoolers in my community. I’m heavily involved in an international 501(c)3 nonprofit called Steel City Codes. I helped to bring Steel City Codes to Denver two years ago, and am one of the four current regional directors. Our goal is to break down socio-economic barriers to CS education by providing high-quality but free education for middle and elementary schoolers. Our goal is: ensuring that every student who comes into our program leaves with an enjoyable experience and newfound passion for computer science. It’s inspiring to think that, for some our students, this program is the start to their computer science careers. What also motivates me is the knowledge that me and my fellow volunteers can serve as role models to inspire people in STEM. As someone who got into CS because of female role models in my life, I understand the importance of making sure every child – regardless of background – not only has equal opportunity to learn CS, but feel equally represented. Today, the majority of our volunteers are BIPOC, and nearly half of our volunteers are women. We also have LGBT representation.”

Chloe Yan: “Growing up in the Bay area, I am lucky to have been surrounded by an abundance of opportunities to pursue computer science from a young age. Being introduced to computer science early on led me to think in many new ways and become better at problem-solving – but most of all, it was super fun! So, after recognizing the education gap in computer science fueled by the fact that 25% of K-12 students nationwide lack reliable access to Internet, I was inspired to co-found CS Hands-On, where I created an offline computational thinking curriculum for elementary and middle school students. Through our lessons filled with hands-on activities and fun storytelling which match the level of interaction and the engaging quality of traditional online curricula, I aim to advance computer science education in low-resource environments and promote inclusion in the field. Since then, we’ve introduced our curriculum into two middle school classrooms, and are currently reaching out to teachers at educational conferences hosted by the Computer Science Teachers Association to expand it to many more.”

Cindy Shi: “In addition to NCWIT activities, I have also established my own nonprofit with a coding class called CyberInspire. I am also a community volunteer for my current city where I live, and I’ve taught kids in my city – both boys and girls – engineering and web design. So, I am attending the University of Maryland, and I have also been involved with UMD student groups that support diversity in computing. I’d love volunteering and participating in professional activities with a society of women engineers. I’m actually a current board member as a corporate relations student chair. My ultimate goal through all of the work that I’ve done is to make sure that everyone understands computers and technology, because that is our future and I want everyone to have an equal playing field. We’re making sure that we get everything we need, including our education and just improving ourselves throughout our lives.”

​Watch the NCWIT AspireIT Impact Award Recipient Spotlight Videos shared on Sept. 15, 2022​

 
Fara Yan: “I’m a strong supporter of women in STEAM, and eager to create an inclusive STEAM community that empowers female and non-binary individuals. Experiencing gender disparity firsthand led me to join Girl Genius, a nonprofit that is working to connect, empower and inspire female change-makers in STEAM. There, I lead partnerships and events to organize takeovers and STEAM-related virtual events to offer resources and shine a light on women changing the world in STEAM. We’ve held over 60 events so far, reaching around 8,000 attendees worldwide. Just through the Girl Genius community, I’ve found such a strong support system there and was introduced to many computing opportunities. I’ve learned how community and courage can be the catalyst for bold change. In the future, I hope to use computing and design as tools to fight educational inequality head-on.”

Gloria Salas: “My freshman year, I went and I joined Douglas Dynamics Computing Corps and went into computer science. Those clubs allowed me to join initiatives such as going to nearby high schools and middle schools in the New Brunswick area, Piscataway. I love to have opportunities to talk to middle schoolers and high school students about computer science and what I’m learning about it on a university level. In my second year, I was actually able to volunteer at the annual woman-centric hackathon HackHERS, and that was a unique opportunity because I was able to mentor freshmen who were interested in computer science, who were interested in hacking and computing. So, that was a really good opportunity to embark on too, because that gave me the leadership skills to lead others, and lead them to the projects that they wanted to build.”

Gracie Hou: “What inspires me to do this work partly stems from my own interest in computer science. Being in this field has introduced me to so many new people, opportunities, and ideas, and I think everyone should have this chance as well. I’m passionate about the work I do because I think computer science, and just knowledge about computing in general, is an essential skill that everyone should have, or at least have the opportunity to know of. A particular story where I knew I was making a difference was when I was visiting elementary schools with my club, Girl Up. We were doing STEM presentations and coding experiments with the kids to help introduce them to these topics. After each presentation for class, I was able to see all the students become more curious after each experiment, and ask questions because they became genuinely interested in computing and STEM after our presentations. It was really rewarding to see that kids may have found a new passion for coding, and they had a good time with a presentation the club worked so hard on.”

Harita Suresh: “Last year in collaboration with IEEE and the Indian Institute of Technology, I connected coding classes for children in Kochi and Patna, which are rural, underserved areas in India. Many students assumed coding was hard, and had never developed a game before. By the end of the workshop, every student created at least two games and was excited to explore coding more. My classes often grow over time because students love exploring and challenging themselves to create incredibly cool projects. One of my students was from India, and stayed up every day from 10-11 p.m. to attend my classes. My inspiration comes from seeing my students glow with pride when they create a game and realize, ‘Yes, I did it!’ Witnessing their joy in creating something they visualized in their minds is a priceless moment for me. I believe that coding and creativity offer endless possibilities to express oneself. Anyone who learns to code can come up with innovative ways of connecting communities, standing up to injustice, and breaking stereotypes.”

Julia Huang: “My goal is to basically help middle schoolers, high schoolers, college students, and beyond to help them learn new skills in coding and music – or, help enhance their skills in coding and music. We also want to increase diversion and inclusion in both of these fields because ethnic minorities and gender minorities are underrepresented in both coding and music. When I was learning both of these subjects, I felt alone because I didn’t really know anyone who liked these topics. But after running these events, running these clubs, and organizations, I realized that there’s a lot more people than I knew who also liked and were passionate about what I was passionate about as well. Seeing how awesome coding is was this experience that I learned from after attending this summer program, where we had this project where we created a model that could help detect student cancer. That was huge because that really taught me to realize how impactful coding something really is. That taught me to realize that’s why my purpose is to help others and help equip others with skills needed so they can also create impactful projects that can help impact a community or solve a problem.”

Lalitha Guntiri: “Honestly, all of the young girls that I meet through CREATE and through our workshop really inspire me to continue doing what I do. They all bring innovative ideas to the table, and they’re always enthusiastic and ready to learn. One particular memory that really makes me feel like I am making a difference is when this girl came up to me after one of our tech workshops and was like, ‘Oh my God, that was so interesting and fun! I didn't even know you could do that. I’m going to go home and build my own website.” This really made me feel like I was making an impact, since now, this young girl has her eyes opened to a whole new world of computing and technology. Getting comments like this from students and families really inspires me to continue doing what I do. This really shows that we are making an impact, and what we’re doing directly is affecting all of these young girls. I cannot wait to take CREATE and our tech workshops to the next level.”

Laurel Shugart: “I’ve learned firsthand how difficult it is to be authentically yourself in an area that simply doesn’t support that. I’ve been born and raised in the epitome of a rural Alabama town. A population of 14,000 has created that “everyone knows everyone” atmosphere where anything outside of the social norm isn’t exactly embraced. As one of the first openly queer teenagers to advocate for equitable STEM education in a deeply conservative area, I’ve taken my responsibility to foster spaces where young people like myself can thrive. I first tackled this within my own community, ensuring that my middle and high school programs were constantly providing a safe haven. This meant both dismantling harmful misconceptions among my peers and celebrating the diversity that already existed in our programs. I’m motivated by knowing that the girls, the queer children, and the people of color in my community won’t have to jump through the hurdles that I did because I have made STEM more accessible.”

Lauren Wong: “I’m the founder of Nevada Girls in STEM, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering young women in STEM. Nevada Girls in STEM offers STEM workshops and special events to girls ages 12 to 18. We collaborated with the University of Nevada Las Vegas’s College of Engineering, and a group of 25 high school girls interested in STEM and computer science got a special tour of the computer science labs, as well as other engineering labs and UNLV. One of the girls whose family immigrated here from Guatemala said to me after the event, ‘Lauren, this is one of the most impactful experiences I’ve ever had. It’s the first time I’ve ever been on a college campus, the first time I’ve ever spoken to a female professor of computer science, and the first time I’ve been an all-girl group where I felt supported, encouraged, and inspired to be me.’”

Manika Aggarwal: “Having been one of the only girls in my computer science and engineering classes all through middle school and high school, I know the value a proper role model can have for a young girl interested in pursuing a STEM education. When I was younger, I wished I had a role model, or someone I could look up to, as I was planning my high school computer science education. Now, I’m proud to say that I can be that person for younger generations in my community and around the nation. It’s for this reason that I founded the ProjectCSGirls Austin Chapter. I wanted to focus on bringing awareness of CS to officially recognized Title 1 middle schools within my area, and schools with over 50% Hispanic and African American populations, or over 50% of students requiring free or reduced-price lunches. Most of the schools under these criteria did not have many existing CS opportunities. Additionally, I worked as the girls and youth program coordinator for CS is Elementary, another computer sciences nonprofit organization. I taught weekly, hour-and-a-half, virtual robotics instructional sessions for more than 30 young students in third through fifth grade, creating dynamic lesson plans to improve accessibility for students with low-income backgrounds unable to attend live workshops.”

​Watch the NCWIT AspireIT Impact Award Recipient Spotlight Videos shared on Sept. 22, 2022​

Manya Bhagat: “The 1.4 million computer scientists not only envision our perfect tomorrow, but they build it, and they program it. Out of those computer scientists, one in five are true stereotype-breakers; they are women in computer science. That’s who I want to be. I aspire to be a role model for women in STEM, and I want to be someone who girls can look up to and believe in themselves in this industry. I’m also passionate about the leadership I’m involved in because it’s helped me find my voice. I now hope to help others find their voice, too, and feel confident in sharing it. For example, I want to especially help women find their voice and feel comfortable in sharing those ideas that they know are great. I hope to help others go through this transformation that I’ve been able to go through, and become confident speakers specifically in computer science. My work is inspired by building the confidence in each young girl I interact with. It’s about making these voices heard. What’s my “why?”

Marissa Liu: “I am the president of Math Invitational for Girls, or MIG, which has a mission of combatting underrepresentation of women in STEM. Within my time in being in the MIG leadership team, we expanded from an in-person competition to a national online competition, as well as adding a new seminar series featuring prominent women in STEM from around the nation, and also students studying STEM in college. It really excites me that these girls are really changing this traditionally male-dominated STEM field. It inspires me to continue pursuing my love for STEM, and to continue offering opportunities for girls my age and younger to be able to pursue STEM and realize they have so much potential.”

Melody Lee: “For me currently, the worlds of computer science and quantum computing spark my interest – and I actually currently work for Q-munity Tech, a company based around introducing quantum computing to the wider world. I have developed and edited course materials for beginners, high school and undergraduate students, and even business professionals. But taking a step back, in my freshman year I founded the Next Generation STEM club, where we sought to bridge the gap between middle and high school students through free workshops and seminars. I would also go on to co-found the Xplore summer program, raising over $9,000 for nonprofits in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic by teaching classes in computer science, and app development, and other areas traditionally not seen in the classroom. I hope, once again, to see the spark in people as they are inspired and excited as I am to explore these different worlds within computing, and just everything beyond.”

Melody Yu: “I founded the Inspire Coding Club, a non-profit organization aiming to inspire people with low access to educational resources to learn computing. Noticing the lack of free and computational resources in my community, my club brings volunteers to local homeless shelters to teach the kids there coding for free. We bring a team of 10 or so students who go two different local shelters on a biweekly basis, and in two hour-long sessions, we teach the students basic coding languages, such as Scratch and Python. I also serve as the executive of the Competitive Programming Initiative, which encourages high school students to pursue further studies in computing. I created free, online resources with over 500 minutes of coding tutorials, and reached over 11,000 students. I hope to bring more representation of high-level female and non-binary coders to light, to share their stories to encourage more people to get into coding. Computing is beautiful, and it’s impacted my world so much that I want to share it with others.”

Michelle Wang: “In 2019, I taught Python programming to 25 computing club members. After attending Stanford AI for All in 2020, I led a five-county, virtual 4-H STEM club where I shared what I’d learned. I developed an AI-centric curriculum, complete with hands-on projects and discussions about the societal implications of AI. After attending MIT Beaver Works’ Summer Institute in 2021, I led two local 4-H drone clubs, and conducted drone workshops at the statewide 4-H Junior Leadership Conference. The target audience for these activities were 4-H youth, many of whom are homeschooled and live on farms. I aimed to spark an interest in STEM and computing in kids who might not have thought that technology was an exciting future. Outside of 4-H, I’ve also been a volunteer counselor for a girls’ STEAM camp. I’m also the head instructor of the Carbondale Middle School MATHCOUNTS team, where in addition to teaching, I am responsible for handling scheduling and planning the curriculum.”

Nicole Pi: “So, I believe that progress in technology – in fact, progress in society – is through what I call these full circles, where people who are learning skills, they aren’t just learning them to gain knowledge for themselves. But, they are using their skills to impart knowledge on other people. I will never forget. Once, I was talking to a student from Ghana during one of our first events, which was a Python workshop. They were talking to me about how they were waking up at 2 a.m. to attend our 7 p.m. PT class. This is when it really occurred to me, the importance of what I was doing. Because it’s just unbelievable, really, to think that there are students from across the globe tuning into my classes because there are topics, such as cybersecurity and programming, that are not given space in the education system; that there are students that are depending on these free, interactive programs to learn these really important 21st-century skills.”

Nicole Xu: “Last semester, I founded and raised over $2,500 for alGIRLithm, a global programming contest dedicated to making competitive programming accessible to high school girls. I also serve as the president of Girls Who Code-KATY and Girls in STEM at Tompkins High School, which aim to build a sense of community and empowerment within high school girls through workshops, social events, and community outreach. I direct the youth and computer science summer program, and I serve on the youth advisory board for the National Girls Collaborative Project, where I speak on the issue of girls in computing at town halls and youth summits. What makes me really passionate about this type of work is seeing potential impact. This year, I’ve been really trying to really give the members of Girls Who Code-KATY access to some outside opportunities; so, discussing other nonprofits students can be involved in, announcing contests at weekly meetings, etc. So, whether it’s teaching just a few kids how to code in Java through Zoom or hosting science nights for hundreds of students and parents, this type of work has really boosted my own confidence and inspired me to continue pushing for diversity in tech.”

Nidhya Shivakumar: “I am the founder and leader of an organization called BOOST ROBOTICS, with a mission to provide educators and students an opportunity to delve into the world of competitive X robotics. Through this unique, peer-to-peer, and virtual 12-week program, we offer weekly one-hour sessions, during which we provide highly interactive presentations and video lessons which include build instructions. Our target audience is middle and high school students who come from underrepresented groups in STEM, with over two thirds of our mentored students being girls. I am passionate about the work I do because I have been personally affected by the gender imbalance in robotics, and at times, still struggle with imposter syndrome. Many times, I felt like I didn't belong, and I didn’t want anyone else to experience that same feeling for doing something they loved.”

Nitya Pakala: “In high school, I became involved with Girl Bytes, which is a club that mentors girls in computing – and I fell in love with its mission and community. Specifically, my work here as its president involves organizing frequent workshops in which we teach students languages, like Java, HTML, CSS, Python, and more. We also build the curriculum for this as well. We would host these workshops very frequently, and we would always receive positive feedback from parents and students thanking us. So, it was always a very welcoming space to teach in. So, these are the things that make me passionate about what I’m doing; knowing the true impact I’m making on these girls, and these marginalized communities, and giving them the opportunity to succeed in the future. Especially for a field as popular and male-dominated as computer science, it is crucial for more women to get involved, because it is only with a diverse representation that we will be able to move forward.”

​Watch the NCWIT AspireIT Impact Award Recipient Spotlight Videos shared on Sept. 28, 2022

 
Obianuju Okafor: “A big passion of mine is increasing the participation of marginalized groups in computing; this includes people of color, people with disabilities. The reason that I’m passionate about this is because, as a Black woman in the computing field, coming up in the computing field, I really didn’t see a lot of people who looked like me in the field. Because of this, I felt a little bit discouraged and isolated. Having this experience, I realized the importance of inclusion in computing. I made it a mission to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in computing. To achieve my goals, I have been a part of and I have participated in several workshops that aim to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in computing.”

Oindree Chatterjee: “Over the pandemic, I realized that low-income minority students are receiving even less access to STEM opportunities than before COVID. I mean, how are students supposed to enjoy STEM and develop confidence within themselves if they’ve never had any exposure to the industry in the first place? That is why I went back to the SEMI Foundation, became their only high school volunteer, and started the STEM Corner podcast – sponsored by them – to provide curious individuals and minorities with exposure to the opportunities that lie in STEM fields through enthusiastic women, genderqueer, and non-binary speakers actively working in tech industries. Filming this podcast episode inspired me to use the concept of DEI to lead all my robotics teams’ outreach. Holding events with Girls Who Code groups, gender-neutral scout troops, and low-income schools has made a difference.”

Radhika Goyal: “My name is Radhika Goyal, and I founded TechPower4All, an organization that empowers girls and low-income youth to pursue computer science. I create curricula about topics ranging from the basics of coding to programming in Python. I then conduct workshops to teach these skills to middle and high schoolers. Additionally, I wanted to make TechPower4All’s impact extend beyond my local community. So, I started the TechPower4All chapter program, where I recruit and train other high school students in conducting their own workshops. Through this program, TechPower4All is able to have a global reach, allowing us to teach girls and low-income youth across the world about technology. To me, diversity is of utmost importance in technology, because it ensures that people of all backgrounds are being included.”

Rebecca Wang: “Hydra Hacks is a nonprofit organization which hosts an annual summer hackathon and monthly events. The monthly events are typically workshops – intro to blockchain and NLP, and panels of female founders landing internships. Our vetted speakers explain the concept, introduce an interactive code-along, and then provide further resources. In the hackathons, the workshops/panels have the same format, and intersecting project tracks are introduced, like best beginner hack and best empowerment hack, to show how interdisciplinary technology can be. Hydra Hacks representatives reflect the participants. So, 90% of all organizers, mentors, judges, workshop hosts and speakers identify as a marginalized gender from differing majors/backgrounds. By having volunteers from minority communities, students can see people from similar backgrounds finding success.”

Richael Saka: “The organization that I started in my school community, called the Code Club, allowed me to reach a group of my peers, especially those from marginalized communities, such as women in STEM and people of color in STEM. Throughout this past school year, I was able to create a curriculum to teach Arduino engineering fundamentals and also Python. I was able to teach these groups of people, you know, to use their STEM super powers to contribute back to our community – and also find something they could possibly pursue in the future. Being a role model to people that were younger than me really made a difference in my life, because it really made me feel like I was actually making a tangible change in people’s mindset – because I was always taught that STEM was a boys’ thing, and that girls could never do it as well. So, it was really amazing to see that I was able to inspire other girls as well.”

Riddhi Bhagwat: “I have worked to promote equity at my school as a part of the Girls in STEAM club’s executive board, in which I empower girls and non-binary individuals to take a stand and engage with the STEM industry. Inspired by all of these experiences, as well as my experience on the GirlCon leadership team over the past few years, I have began my own nonprofit organization, GenSpire, with similar goals in mind. As a part of GenSpire, I have launched initiatives to promote the access of technology to various marginalized communities that have lacked this access, especially as a result of the pandemic. Additionally, we have our technology equity initiative, in which we connect our high school volunteers with various women and girls in rural communities that lack access and acceptance towards education in technology. We provide them with foundational curriculum that allows them to become empowered individuals and pursue paths of their choosing.”

Safaa Hussain: “I also served as co-vice president of a student-led nonprofit initiative called CodELEVATE, where I helped create and teach Python and Snap! curriculum to introduce young girls to CS for the first time on a weekly basis. We started at the very basics; so, teaching them first and foremost what CS even was. During the pandemic, we were searching for a way to reach more students virtually. We ended up partnering with another nonprofit, who were already holding tutoring sessions over Zoom in subjects like math and English, so we reached out, and we partnered with them, and began offering CS classes to elementary schoolers. It was extremely rewarding and humbling, because it was an opportunity for me to not only pass on my coding experience, but also put myself in their shoes and remember what it was like learning computer science for the first time as a little girl. I’m very passionate about the work I do now because I know what it’s like to be part of an activity related to technology, and being the only girl in the room.”

Shamiya Lin: “I’m a co-founder of the Females in STEM Alliance, an organization working to share the stories of women who have decided to pursue a career in STEM, and raise awareness to the existing discrimination in both school and workplaces, as we found that many female-only schools did not provide STEM AP courses. As Ms. Lexi C. Peck has shared in an interview, companies sometimes expect less from women who are just as capable as men when it comes to performing a job task. Unfortunately, many girls do not have the opportunity to learn about computing until their first exposures in outreach programs. Thus, we ought to fill this gap, and be more grateful for what we have right now. We would like to encourage more girls to try their hands in computer science by both partnering with all-girl schools and utilizing the media to share the stories of inspirational women.”

Sindhu Sivasankar: “Through WISE, I was able to work with my other club members to hold an online workshop for students from Newark Charter Intermediate School. These students would most likely go on to the high school that I currently attend, and would thus have to choose a pathway course to take for three years. This initiative really taught me the value of mentorship. I remember when I was in eighth grade, struggling to find the pathway course to fit me. But with this workshop, I was able to guide the students and allow them to immerse themselves in the different STEM fields. That’s why I additionally joined a nonprofit called Coding4Kids as a content creation member – to reach even more underrepresented communities. I also joined WomenWired as a software programmer, to highlight important roles that females had in the field – which I could benefit from as well. Additionally, I joined Girls Unite For Defense as a publicist, helping girls learn more about cyber safety while they pursue these careers.”

​Watch the NCWIT AspireIT Impact Award Recipient Spotlight Videos shared on Oct. 6, 2022​

Sreeyutha Ratala: “So, the accessibility gap in education is a big issue. I decided to address it by creating Camp Venom, a free, two-week coding camp for underprivileged kids. To build Camp Venom, some of my roles included fundraising over $2,500, renting a library room, advertising and designing a website and coding curriculum, and recruiting volunteers. Ultimately, this camp empowered 100 people in STEM, including 53 campers and 47 volunteers. So, it was a pretty big event. I gained a lot as well. For example, working with kids heightened my confidence in my own abilities by allowing me to share my ideas in a safe and inclusive setting. When I interviewed campers and volunteers on the last day, I realized that many of our campers went from thinking coding was way too boring or hard to thinking it was actually really interesting and super cool. My goal was to show kids they are capable of coding, and belong in computer science – even if they feel outcasted. Hence, they can learn to code on their own, even when resources are scarce – and many expressed interest in doing so after Camp Venom ended, so I was really happy about that. The high school volunteers loved the experience as well because they got the chance to work directly with kids and inspire these future coders in the same way other volunteers inspired them when they were kids. In other words, their experience came in full circle, and that’s always incredible.”

Sreyashi Mondal: “It’s not always easy for young girls to pursue their interest in STEM, considering it is a very male-dominated field – but through my efforts with organizations such as Girls of Steel Robotics, the Society of Women Engineers, and many more, I am working to inspire the next generation of young women to pursue their aspirations in computing. As part of our outreach, we take every opportunity we can to spread knowledge of STEM to girls through our workshops and summer camps. I mentor students in these summer camps and encourage them to believe in their tech abilities. I want every girl who joins a camp or workshop with us to feel like she has the capability to pursue any career she wants. I want to continue inspiring thoses in my community the same way others have inspired me.”

Sruthi Sentil: “My name is Sruthi Sentil, and I’m the founder and executive director of BuddyKnit, which is a 501(c)3 organization operating in the entirety of Florida, though we’re based in Tallahassee, Fla., establishing peer-mentor relationships between high school and college-aged mentors, and underprivileged youth in kindergarten through eighth grade. I got started creating this organization in January of 2021 after my own experience mentoring students in foster care. Over the summer of 2020, I was able to get connected with a Florida child welfare case manager and mentor about seven students virtually that were in the foster care system. It was from this experience that I wanted to create an organization to facilitate these connections between teens and youth, especially youth that could benefit from having a positive peer role model that could really be able to connect with them on a more personable level.”

Stuti Agarwal: “This is why I co-founded STEMPower4Girls, which aims to provide an environment, opportunities, and experiences for girls to not only develop their passion in STEM, but to pursue their passion. We hold weekly STEM workshops for underprivileged girls across the globe so they are able to find their interests and actually pursue them. We’ve reached 1,050 girls globally, and we’ve impacted 19 U.S. states, five countries, and 44 schools. We hold STEM workshops on topics that are not taught in school, such as Java and Python programming, algorithms, data structures; topics that are new and unique to all the girls who are attending our workshop, and they can use this interest to really pursue a career in the future.”

Subhadra Vadlamannati: “Linguistics Justice League started as another nonprofit organization, MI STEM Education, in late 2020 to early 2021. At that time, we volunteered with refugee and immigrant families through organizations like World Relief Seattle and the Refugee Women’s Alliance. At the time, we gave STEM educations to the kids, but we realized that after three to four months of doing this, that kids had a greater need, which was English language learning. We realized that the English language programs were understaffed at these organizations, and they were having a hard time keeping up with the various languages the kids spoke. We isolated that a lot of these languages were considered low-resource languages due to the lack of translation materials available for translating into the languages. We realized there wasn’t really a solution for this, and there weren’t too many organizations that were focusing on addressing the language barrier at a large scale. This is why, as part of Linguistics Justice League, we are building technology that helps refugee families learn English by leveraging their knowledge of their native languages.”

Sweta Das: “Today, as co-president of Girls Who Code, I am proud to say that we have made progress in closing the gender gap in technology by fostering a supportive community of girls, targeting specifically those from underrepresented minority groups. We have offered our members the opportunity to explore their interests through beginner and advanced level coding workshops, hackathons, and CS tutoring sessions. We additionally help members explore a variety of career paths by providing them with information about computer science scholarships, internships, and summer programs. One experience that has truly made me proud of what Girls Who Code has become was when I was promoting our club at a school event. A parent whose daughter wasn’t in GWC at the time approached our booth with her younger daughter, who was entering high school. She mentioned the impact that our club had on her older daughter, who planned on pursuing computer science in college.”

Vanesha Hari: “I also founded my nonprofit initiative called Joys of Giving, where I created the curriculum and lead over 20+ STEM workshops, reaching over 150+ youth, focusing on the underserved. I’ve consistently volunteered as a STEM instructor in a few organizations over the last few years, sparking curiosity in over 200 girls. I’m also an elected board member on the Girls Who Code club at school, and I’m creating curriculum and teaching Java. Through these experiences impacting over 400+ girls, my curiosity sparked for technology and engineering. As I stayed persistent through the adversities of being an only girl most times, I qualified for the World Robotics Championship twice. I am passionate about spreading this curiosity, and bringing more girls along my journey, because it brings me fulfillment. I don’t want them to feel alone like I did, and when one teaches, two learn.”

Victoria Paesano: “I founded CyberGirls last year as a way to empower more middle school girls to explore new technology fields in computer science and cybersecurity. When I began a cybersecurity class at Breakthrough Miami – an after-school program for middle school students, three girls were signed up for the elective out of 20 students. After seeing the class was made up of mostly boys, the girls switched to a different elective class. I was really disappointed by the lack of support these girls felt in that environment, especially because I’ve been in the same position for all of my high school computer science classes. I was one of three or two girls for two years, and the only girl in my class for a whole year. I was motivated to encourage more girls to explore cybersecurity and computer science without feeling overpowered as a minority in the classroom. I aim to introduce more female middle school students to new technology ideas through an engaging and interactive format with CyberGirls.”