San Francisco, California
I am a high school senior who is studying to become a software engineer in civic tech. I am an alumna of the Girls Who Code Summer Immersion Program and She++ #Include Fellow. At my school I founded and helped teach a Girls Who Code club. I also co-founded and organized the first high school hackathon in Oakland, CA! I lead the Computer Science education week at my school, working with the administration as well as Code.org and Salesforce to coordinate school-wide Hour of Code workshops and inspiring industry speakers. We even had a visit by White House staff. As part of Techbridge, I’ve built “Soundboxed,” a project to engage young learners of music and an app called MakerQuest, both to be presented at the San Mateo Maker Faire.
I am part of the NCWIT community and have won three awards. Through NCWIT AspireIT I was awarded a grant to hold an app development workshop series for middle-school girls.
In my community I have worked with a local nonprofit to revamp their website and make it accessible for the staff to edit. I have interned at UCSF, working on motion capture research and at a local start-up incubator, working with a team from Panama to develop their tutoring platform.
During high school I have been heavily involved in community engagement projects related to technology education. In the future, I want to pursue computer science for social good and be part of civic engagement projects that improve the lives of people in the community.
Never get discouraged by other people's standards. Technology and computer science aren't limited to people based on their sex or the color of their skin. If you ever question your place in these fields, just remember what you are doing it for. In my case, and most likely yours, it's because it's your passion.
