You're listening to Bloomberg BusinessWeek with krol Messer and Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
Got a number for you, mister stanoviek Okay, less than twenty percent of undergraduate computer science degrees go to women, less than twenty percent, and that data is coming from the National Science Foundation. So that means four out of every five degrees, four out of every five in an industry already dominated by men. Have you seen the Barbie movie Anybody go to Men? And our next guests are trying to change that and get more young women and individuals into coding.
Yeah, very pleased to have with us this afternoon, oz Emiokparia, the CEO of Code with CLASSI. Also with us is kwk's content and community coordinator Alexis Williams. Both are here in our Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio. KWK is a nonprofit organization. It receives funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the philanthropic arm of
Bloomberg LP. It is the parent company of Bloomberg Radio. OZI, I want to start with you just talk to us a little about this organization because it's doing some really important work.
Yeah. So Coba Glossi started an twenty fifteen and is the brainchild of our founder.
Carly Class.
So for those who are familiar, Carli Class is an incredible entrepreneur, supermodel, philanthropist, and she started this organization back in twenty fifteen based on her own personal experience learning how to code and noticing when she lifted her head up from the keyboard that there weren't other women in the room. And so she used her platform, as she has done many a time, to reach out to her audience and say who else would want to have this
coding experience? And she was overwhelmed by the response from her audience. Twenty one scholarship positions and she had thousands of people interested, and that was the germ for Code with Clossi back in twenty fifteen. And so here we are eight years later, and we now have over ten thousand young people in our alumni community. And this summer we were about to wrap up our biggest summer ever, sixty two camps, almost five thousand scholarships awarded, and we're kind.
Of on a role I want to bring a lix cinema, But tell us about those alumni eight years that's a big chunk of individuals and time invested. What are they doing now? What are you hearing about that alumni base.
Yeah, so our oldest cohort of alumni who went through our summer programming started in twenty sixteen, and so those folks are now twenty twenty five years old. So they are graduating from university, they're getting their first jobs all the way through the cohort that we have this summer. Who are some of our youngest scholars the summer A thirteen and so when they complete this program, they will
join our global community. And so they're doing a range of things from you know, giving ted talks like Alexis has done, or winning science challenges. We had a winner of the Apple Swift Student Challenge. So they're really just sort of incredibly applying their skills and continuing to sort of pursue their passion in tech.
Alexis, come on in on the work that you guys are doing and just kind of building out this community and what you are seeing.
Yeah, I just think one of the most amazing things about Code with CLASSI is so many people are interested in anding in general, but I feel like it sounds something so you know, difficult and challenging. But the work that Code with Colossi does is really demystifying that idea of what is an engineer, What does it mean to make an app? What does it mean to make a website?
So it's really amazing to offer this opportunity to a bunch of young people to have that demystified, to make their first apps, to make their first websites, because I think that's like one of the first steps into showing people who have been pushed to the margins in a space like engineering that it's not only possible, but there are a group of people out there that are more than willing and able to support them. And that's why the work that Code with Colossi.
Does is we talk so much about inclusivity, and when you said push to the margins, tell us about some of the individuals, like who is actually participating in the program? Because I agree with you, I hear more and more when we talk about diversity, it's about inclusion, feeling like you're belonging in that if you know, you might be curious, but you're just like I don't belong Yeah.
So Code with opens its doors to young women, gender expansive youth and trans kids, and really it's one of the first places where I talk to scholars all the time, they're like, this is the first place I've felt welcome and accepted. And that is honestly more important than being
able to learn how to code. Like having it be a space having code with COLOSSI, be a space where this is one of the first times people are walking into a room and feel like they're being received with open arms is so important.
We talk about tim and I have so many different conversations about diversity inclusion. We do it with women in venture capital and lack of funding and so on and so forth. But you know, there needs to be these important, big steps that are game changing, life changing, that really make a difference.
And I think it's what's interesting is I think there's diversity on a lot of dimensions. About half of our scholars qualify for free and reduced lunch, so we have socioeconomic diversity. We also have folks that come in actually knowing how to code. So to Alexis's point, what they are coming for is not just the rigor of the
skill building, but also the inclusion and acceptance. And so we're finding this really interesting mix of people that you wouldn't necessarily find out in the world naturally gravitating into these same spaces. Again, eighty percent of our scholars are people of color, so you know, not only gender and diversity, socioeconomic, skill level, political spectrum. We are sort of a space that welcomes all in terms of trying to crack open the door to a community.
Yeah, I want to talk to you, Ozi about the way that your own experience at some of the biggest companies, some of the biggest tech companies in the world, kind of shaped the kind of leader you are today.
Did you always feel like you belonged?
Well, that's what I'm wondering. I mean, you were at Google for years, you were at EBA for years, you were in the not for profit space at the John Zuckerberg Initiative before this, talk to me a little bit about I don't know your experience and what you want to bring to the table, Like Carol ass, did you always feel accepted?
Well, I think that's I think that's why I was so drawn to the COVID classy opportunity. So I joined COVID COLOSSI back in March. So I'm coming up on six months and so I have lived experience as a black woman in tech and often the only one in many of these rooms, and I think, you know, I
definitely did not always feel accepted. I think there was a tipping point in my career where you feel like you have built your craft and understand your skills well enough to sort of feel comfortable in rooms, but you definitely build to that. It's not something that you sort
of walk in the door having or knowing. But I think what that experience taught me is that we not only have to focus on upskilling the individual and providing incredible programs like we do at COVID Classy, but we also have to think about what are the systems that prevent people from being successful. So I would claim that I'm quite credentialed right Stanford undergrad master's degree, like so all the credentials, underachiever, but still found challenges. So it's
not about the individual talent. There are also hurdles that are systemic, and so really thinking about that holistically is what we are going to do in the next eight years of Cope with Quasi's path is to say we're doing an incredible job of sparking the interest of a new generation but what are we doing with companies like Bloomberg and others to really think about the systems On the other side, what are the practices around hiring and
retention and promotion that are really going to create opportunities for people?
Well, and you know we've often talked about this with just women. I'm just going to very basic in terms of you know, women come in, men out of college, they start at the same level, and then as they start to go up the last it gets very very different. So where's the support network for that? I do want to ask you though before we go, because we only have about a couple of minutes. Alexis come on back, and
it's a two week summer camp. I want to see if I've got the numbers right, sixty two camps, forty in person in twenty cities, twenty two virtual. It's like massive thirteen to eighteen year olds. So what are they do in those two weeks?
So basically we have four different curriculums where a scholars are alone learning the basics to different curriculums like mobile applications, web development, AIML, data science. And it's a short two week period, so they're learning really basics and getting to build off of that basics that they learn in the first week with a final project in the second week.
So it's important that they're setting down yeah, and getting their education, but then they get to actually put it into practice and then at the end of camp show their peers, show their families the great things that they're making.
Yeah.
So cool.
Yeah, what's the youngest age that somebody can can join?
Thirteen? And so what I think is remarkable again you know, diversity and age range. You have thirteen year olds who step up their game to be in the room with eighteen year olds who are also learning these skills, and it's again it's an application not only the hard skills, but some of the what I call twenty first century leadership skills around collaboration and critical thinking and creativity that are really also applied in that final project as well.
So it really is incredible to see thirteen year olds sort of hanging tough there.
I have a lot of nieces and I often just say, you know, part of sometimes you just gotta like try something because if we just spark an interest, and I feel like that's what you guys, like, you're exposing them two weeks is not a ton of time, but you can, you can pack a lot in and you can spark an interest or and then they know kind of like, Okay, now I know what is the question to ask her. I know something to pursue, and I think it's just really cool stuff. We'll come back and let us not.
Things are going and we will love to bring Carly with you.
We would love to, we would love to.
I met her once. She's really tall,