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Made With Code
Made With Code
Rose Broome, Founder & CTO of HandUp“Whatever you care about, you can write one program and millions of people can be touched.”
In the male-dominated tech industry, programs like Google’s “Made with Code” initiative are working to change the paradigm and balance the workforce by empowering teen girls around the world with computer programming skills.
Encouragement and exposure are critical factors in influencing young women in middle and high school to pursue computer science.
Frankly, female voices are essential to ensuring that the issues women find important are addressed. Computer programming provides women an opportunity to communicate their ideas and goals in a universally understood language. Coding is creative, coding is global.
Jessica Ladd, Founder of Callisto
“If it's just dudes developing apps, only the problems that dude's have are going to be solved.”
Inspired by female coders around the world, Made with Code commissioned Lonelyleap to produce a series of films about some of the industry’s mentors. Working alongside Portland-based digital agency Swift, Lonelyleap profiled three inspiring female coders, pioneers in their field, who are harnessing the language of code and working to change the tech landscape and their communities through social justice and advocacy.
Kelsey Gillmore-Innis, CTO of Callisto, codes a program allowing sexual assault survivors to anonymously and safely complete an incident report online. They receive a clear unbiased explanation of their reporting options, and then either submit the report directly to their chosen authority or save it as a time-stamped record. Callisto is a one-of-a-kind program slowly being implemented on college campuses across the U.S.
Fereshteh Forough, Founder + CEO of Code to Inspire“I really thought there was a need to have a safe and secure environment for girls to raise their voice as they want.”
Fereshteh Forough, Founder & CEO of Code to Inspire, built the first female coding school in Afghanistan. She aims to empower young women in her home country by improving their technical literacy and consequently providing opportunities for career advancement. Financial independence is crucial for cultural change within traditional Afghani households. Fereshteh’s goal is to spread a message of peace and empowerment to women globally.
Rose Broome, Founder & CEO of HandUp, uses her coding background to help end homelessness. HandUp is a platform that allows members to give directly to those experiencing poverty or homelessness. Rose developed the idea after passing a woman sleeping on the street in the winter of 2012 and wanted to create a new way to give. Nonprofit human services organizations partner with HandUp to raise money online for special programs, client needs, and program or operational expenses.
Fereshteh Forough, Founder + CEO of Code to Inspire
“We are teaching the girls coding skills to be financially independent and express what they feel.”
All of the these nonprofits are passionate about changing the status quo. Lonelyleap wanted to create a series of case study films and pre-roll cut downs that were as energizing and inspiring as the women we were profiling. Through use of poppy color, animation and a toy camera, Lonelyleap went outside the case study box to appeal to younger audiences.
One of the resulting films made its official premiere at the Global Citizen Festival in New York City. Later, Google commissioned us to gather more footage from Afghanistan and make a final film profiling Fereshteh Forough. This film premiered at the inaugural Young Women’s Honors which aired on The CW, before Fereshteh accepted an honor for her work with Code to Inspire.
We’re proud to have collaborated on these films that tell the stories of smart, driven women and their successes in tech and computer programming.