Code Queen is the way forward in post COVID digital world.

In 2018, ETC started considering the future of education & work – as a small charity with limited resources where can it add the most value? We’d just finished building the first girls secondary school in the Masai Mara region and had our first cohort graduate. So it was a good time to reflect and consider our path going forward.

Continuing with building for traditional education didn’t seem like the most productive way to move forward given our limited capital and so we came up with Code Queen. It made sense as mobile technology is becoming more accessible on the Continent.

And given the “new normal” this really was a great move – companies have been forced to accelerate their digital transformation plans. We are giving these young women sought after skills that are transferrable not just locally but globally. This is how we’ve managed to get graduates employed abroad!

Even before COVID - software engineering was the world’s most in demand profession. There were five open jobs for every software developer looking for one in the U.S. alone and I’m guessing that this figure has only become larger. We’ve also continued to observe the gender gap in companies small and big. Even established giants such as Facebook (19%), Google (20%), Apple (23%), Microsoft (19%) and Twitter (17%) are struggling to employ women (The Financial Times). What we’ve found is that this has more to do with confidence and mindset than ability. By creating a “women’s only” program our aim isn’t to purposely exclude the men, but create a safe space where these shy women can grow their confidence and thrive before being let loose into a male dominated environment.