Blerta Thaçi & zana Idrizi - Empowering women in the community of coding

// GIRLS CODING KOSOVA Presentation. // Empowering women in the community // of Coding. System.out.println(“HELLO OSCAL!”);

/**

* Created by Blerta Thaçi and Zana Idrizi

* on 09/05/’15, Tirane, Shqiperi.

*/

Why and how Girls Coding Kosova started?

● In the 2013/2014 school year, only 30.4% of students

enrolled in computer engineering at the university of

Prishtina were women.

● Young women interested in technology are a minority and

they needed support and motivation to continue in this

field.

● Further, Kosovo’s educational system at present offers

theoretical knowledge but few opportunities to gain

practical skills in technology.

● The lack of practical and hands-

on experience from newly

graduated computer scientist or

software engineers results in

their low employability,

especially among women.

● Statistics, personal examples

from seeing different events

attended mostly by men and

seeing women programmers working

on different fields we thought

of making something about it.

This is how we

started Girls

Coding Kosova.

What we have done?

- Feb, March 2014 - research/preparation- Girls Coding Kosova Facebook Page- Monthly meetups - 30+ participants- Presentations of the initiative- Special guests of the field- Brainstorming new ideas- Workshops- Trainings

Prishtina Hackerspace - meetups!

Young girls program - WORKSHOP

- Flappy bird game, using code.org platform.

by:Girls Coding KosovaBasic Education Program &IPKO Foundation

OPEN DATA BOOTCAMP

GCK first Big Project

with Open Data Kosovo

and UNDP

Gender Equality related

corruption risks and

vulnerabilities in civil

service in Kosovo

The project is now online

and you can check it out at:

opendatakosovo.org

OPEN DATA BOOTCAMP- First weekend - An introduction of open data and technology platforms that we worked throughout

Bootcamp.

OPEN DATA BOOTCAMP

The second weekend of the workshop

was more practical and hands on

with:

- Web development with Python

and Flask.

- MongoDB in Python.

- Visualizing data with jQuery

and Highcharts

The workshop was held by Open Data

Kosovo trainers.

They all became Data ADVOCATES

Two girls got an internship

Networking - A great resource for job/projects opportunities!

FLOSS BOOTCAMP

Organized together with Innovations Lab Kosovo and FLOSSK.

During the FLOSS Bootcamp these topics/technologies were covered:

- Introduction to FLOSS and Open Licenses

- GNU/Linux- Getting involved with the FLOSS

Community- HTML/CSS and PHP- Open Street Map- WMKIT Arduino

Group photo at the end of FLOSS Bootcamp

February 2015

OMADA e-learning classes

The e-learning classes for young

girls and boys organized by the

UNICEF Innovations Lab, Girls Coding

Kosova and FLOSSK Free Libre Open

Source Software Kosova.

OMADA trainings were using Treehouse

platform to take the classes of:

1. Building a simple website with HTML/CSS

2. Basics of Android and

3. Basics of Python.

OMADA

WIKI WOMAN CAMP

A weekend camp on editing in Wikipedia together with participants from Kosova, Albania and Serbia. Organized by FLOSSK and GCK Community.

ADVANCE CONCEPTS OF PYTHON

- Introduction to what sets Python apart.- Iterating through and manipulating dictionaries.- Working with list comprehension and slicing.- Lambda expressions.- Solving problems Pythonically.

GIRLS CODING KOSOVA Community now! :)

What do we want to achieve?A large community that will serve as an inspiration for other women/young girls to get involved into the programming field.

Why should this be supported?When you create an environment where people feel open to taking

on new challenges and they feel supported and mentored, they

can really blossom.

Future plans:

meetups++

workshops++

trainings++

A big THANK YOU goes to our supporters!

Thank you! :)

Stay in touch! Facebook: Girls Coding Kosova

Twitter: @girlscodingks