International Women's Entrepreneurship Day
DiscoG are proudly supporting International ‘Women’s Entrepreneurship Day’ which is on the 19th of November 2018. This day is dedicated to established businesswomen across the world. Today, women are coming together to celebrate female “innovators and job creators launching startups… (who are) bringing ideas to life, driving economic growth, and expanding human welfare.” (British High Commission Accra, 2015). The mission of this day is to “empower, celebrate and support women in business to alleviate poverty!” (WED, 2018). Wendy Diamond, the CEO of WED (Women’s Entrepreneurship Day) stated that “Historically, women worldwide have been underpaid, undervalued, underrepresented, underfunded — and underestimated. We are dedicated, determined and driven to change this…” (British High Commission Accra quoting Diamond, 2015). We want to use this day as an opportunity to inspire our students to realise their full potential and embrace their individual talents.
We are celebrating this day as we believe providing the correct mentorship to young girls helps to encourage and inspire them to become successful, confident, and most importantly, digitally savvy future leaders of whatever profession they choose to embark upon. In this ‘Digital Age’, technology is becoming a vast enterprise, yet there are still limitations for many females to get access to and gain full use of technological tools- which could in turn leave them behind. “We know that women are underrepresented at the decision-making level in the professional and broader labour force (especially) in the area of technology.” (Mlambo-Ngcuka, 2018). So, in efforts to combat this and close the ‘Digital Gap’ between males and females within technology, and to “prepare girls for the job market shifts yet to come, we will need close cooperation and dialogue among education and training providers…” (UN Women, 2018). This is where we feel we come in! This day is ever more important to us as we receive an increasing interest from young girls to learn and develop coding skills at our academy.
Katrina Papet, entrepreneur and resident co-founder of DiscoG Coding Academy, has a BA in Architecture from the University of Central Saint Martins. She soon realised that she could apply her creative skills to the business when creating and designing a DiscoG textbook that is now being used to teach our 6-8 year olds. This is where she first discovered the world of coding and found herself wanting to learn more about the topic. This exploration she says “opened her eyes to the endless possibilities you can do with coding” (Katrina, 2018). She wants our students to understand that coding can be applied to a range of subjects and careers, “coding is not just limited to computer science or the tech industry alone” (Katrina, 2018).
We asked some of our female coders about their thoughts on
how they believe learning to code will enhance their future…
"Coding is an exciting and interesting way for kids to learn and connect to this digital age we live in. Coding is lines of code that tell something to do an action or a motion e.g. in Python coding, you can make a turtle move forward. Coding is an essential skill for the new generation because we need to move with the world around us. My weekly coding lessons at DiscoG Coding Academy, not only help my computer skills but also help my maths skills, creativity and flexibility of mind. I hope I will carry these skills with me for my academic future and my career."
By Mia Abbas-Wright, Aged 8
North London Collegiate School
Winner of Special Commendation Learn 2 Think Young Journalist of the Year 2018
“When I grow up, I want to be lawyer, a mathematician, an author, a scientist, a human rights activist, head of UN, a doctor and a coder. Technology is getting faster and more advanced, so coding will help me to keep up with it and inspire other girls to code. Coding has helped me with problem solving and if I become the head of UN or a scientist, it will help me with my logical thinking. Learning to code has helped me with science and maths because you need it for analytical thinking. When I get stuck on a problem, I can now try to 'debug' the issue and work it out.”
– Saachi, Year 6
“I would like to work in the film industry. Understanding coding could help to improve CGI and animation. Coding definitely helps me at school. I understand things more, especially in computing. I am able to use the logic to question things more. I find teamwork much easier now and feel that I am able to think and work more logically.”
– Diya, Year 6
“When I grow up I want to be a scientist and a film producer. Coding will help me to discover new things. Coding has helped me at school because coding involves maths.”
– Isha, Year 3
“I want to be a barrister and work in Law. A case is like an algorithm and you have to think about how to fit the pieces of the problem together. Coding helps me with maths and logical thinking.”
– Sofia, Year 6
“I would like to be a business woman when I am older. Coding might help me when I need to check people's work and find out what's wrong. It helps me with my creativity, critical thinking skills and teamwork. Being able to present, make decisions and solve problems with also helps. Coding helps with maths, English, thinking skills and helps me to make decisions and use my initiative & think logically.”
– Mili, Year 8
References:
WED (2018), WOMEN’S ENTREPRENEURSHIP DAY, posted onto womenseday.org, available at http://www.womenseday.org/, landing page.
British High Commission Accra (2015), Women's Entrepreneurship Day- World news story, posted onto gov.uk (19th November), available at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/womens-entrepreneurship-day, paragraphs 6, 1.
UN WOMEN (2018), UN Women statement for International Girls in ICT Day 2018- Unprecedented hunger for change brings girls expanded horizons and changed attitudes, posted onto unwomen.org (26th April), available at http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2018/4/statement-un-women-girls-in-ict-day, paragraph 5.
Mlambo-Ngcuka, P. (2018), Speech: “We need to close the digital gap”-Remarks by Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UN Women, at the event ‘All on Board- Closing the Digital Gap for Women and Girls in Developing Countries’ at the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium, posted onto unwomen.org (12th April), available at http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2018/4/speech-ed-closing-the-digital-gap-brussels, paragraph 5.