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Wednesday, 23 September 2015

Girls, young women considering technology: Apply today

ST. PAUL — A growing program encouraging girls and young women to explore technology careers is again open for applications.
The 2016 Minnesota Aspirations for Women in Computing awards will connect young female programmers with job shadows, internships and other opportunities.
Becoming one of 11 state winners last year brought Ana Pooley a Surface tablet from Microsoft and other swag from technology companies. The year before, as a junior, the Wayzata High School graduate and student at Macalester College earned opportunities to job shadow with HelpSystems and Marco Inc., an Aspirations sponsor.
Receiving the honors and awards “gave me a lot of motivation,” Pooley said. Another perk was membership in an online community of other winners, where the girls and women share advice and news of career and education opportunities.
Pooley said she “dabbled” in the HTML and CSS programming languages on CodeAcademy.com as a younger student. After returning from middle school in England, she enrolled in Advanced Placement computer science course as a sophomore.

Then addiction struck.
“I got hooked on Java,” she said.
Pooley advised younger students to explore computer science courses at their schools, and if none are available, seek out online options. Her sister wasn’t all that interested in coding, Pooley said, but after playing around on CodeAcademy.com, she signed up for an AP computer science class.
Devan Sayles, business applications analyst at General Mills, another program sponsor, has seen her involvement in the Aspirations program balloon over the past few years. Among other tasks, she helps coordinate the annual awards ceremony, which will be April 19 at the Vadnais Heights Commons. At General Mills, she coordinates all technical work for Pillsbury.com.
Leading more women into technology careers is wise for economic reasons, Sayles said. With a more equal split between female and male workers, companies’ products improve, she said. Its applications improve, and its workforce is better representative of the consumer population.
Sayles said companies should support efforts such as the Aspirations program. She also praised the creation of mentors, who help advise young people outside the company in regards to technology careers.
A group of sixth grade girls she mentored built a mobile app and formed a business plan, Sales said.
Russel Fraenkel is the interim executive director at Advance IT Minnesota, one of eight Centers of Excellence, which promote certain career-related initiatives in the state.
He said the Aspirations program grew out of a desire to interest girls about the technology field. What better way to accomplish that goal, Fraenkel said, than to give them sneak peeks of the industry through internships and job shadows.
Last spring, the president of a Minnesota-based online learning platform put a number on the incoming opportunities to hire women. According to Mark Hurlburt, for every one woman who applies to The Nerdery, 38 men do. The software company, also an Aspirations sponsor, helped produce Prime Digital Academy, which Hurlburt co-founded.
When girls and young women apply to the Aspirations program, they automatically enter the national level competition, Fraenkel said. Minnesota has had two national winners, he said, which are a “distinct group” of 35 students out of about 2,500 applicants.
Fraenkel commended Sayles’ work with Aspirations and said she’s a “classic example” of Advance IT connecting professionals with Minnesota girls. They can identify well with the 2008 high school graduate and envision a career path leading them into technology, he said.
Pooley told the Times girls should apply to the program, even if they think they’re not qualified or they’re not all that interested. The background requirements are low, and if they know a little logic and math, they’ll be fine, she said.
In any case, applicants won’t suffer in the process, Pooley said.
“It doesn’t hurt to try.”



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