Empowering Girls Through Tech

Girls Into Coding is on a mission to get more girls into tech! Join us!

We are Mother & Daughter Team  

Hi, I am Avye and I am 13. I am a maker, coder, workshop leader, founder of Girls Into Coding, and multi-tech award winner. I am very active in the tech & maker community, dedicating a lot of my spare time to exploring & learning about technology and sharing my skills and knowledge with others. I want to empower more girls to explore STEM opportunities.

Hi, I am Helene, Avye's mum. I am passionate about using tech for good and engaging more girls with tech opportunities, helping to address the female underrepresentation and gender-based discrepancies in the Tech industry. I am enthusiastic about improving access to and sharing the benefits of technology, facilitating and imparting key digital skills to the young generation.

In 2020, I was entrusted by Avye as director of the Girls into Coding program, giving it the full-time attention it deserves.

About Girls Into Coding

Girls Into Coding (GIC) is a social enterprise founded and led by Avye and Helene.  “We are a rare mother & daughter team driven to empower girls aged 10 to 14 (a critical age for shaping future pathways), by providing free hands-on workshop events to explore coding, physical computing, 3D design, and robotics. Developing their confidence & sense of belonging in tech settings & a belief in their abilities to embark upon becoming the tech leaders of the future”.

“GIC is highly committed to redressing the gender imbalance in the Tech and Maker community. Our overarching objective is to address and champion gender diversity and challenge stereotypes in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math), and help to bring about a situation where girls and women are engaged in STEM activities, education & careers, equally comfortable, with an equal sense of belonging, and in equal numbers”. 

Only 17% of the UK tech sector are women. Girls and women are under-represented in STEM. This generation has a chance to change that. Tech is too often seen as a ‘boy thing’ & girls need to see other girls just like them doing cool things in the tech space.

For me (Avye), Girls Into Coding is my way of contributing to that change.  The events are free to attend and provide the girls with an opportunity to develop their digital and making skills through hands-on activities.

Our mission

Girls Into Coding aims to engage at least 1000 girls every year with hands-on workshop opportunities and inspiring talks. This is to contribute towards addressing the gender gap in tech and to sustain girls’ interest, initially so that they continue pursuing Tech activities and ultimately, so they are engaged to consider STEM education & careers.

How it started

In 2018 I (Avye) was running robotics workshops at  Kingston University & at other community events, I  began to observe that most attendees at my workshops were boys and on several occasions only boys would attend. Determined to get more girls to access these enriching events and to give STEM a go, I decided to set up Girls Into Coding (GIC). GIC empowers girls aged 10 to 14, by providing FREE hands-on opportunities to explore robotics, coding, physical computing, 3D printing/3D design activities, and inspiring talks by female role models.

How it's going

The huge success of the initial events (which served as an insightful pilot period), along with our enthusiasm and determination, led us to set higher ambitions for GIC. To formalise our commitment to this, Girls Into Coding was granted the status of Community Interest Company in 2020.

Since the pandemic, we have adapted our face-to-face programme, developed robotics kits that get posted out to the girls along with other materials, resources & hardware so they have everything at home to participate in live virtual workshops led by me (Avye) and a team of dedicated mentors. 

So far we have successfully delivered 17 hands-on virtual events & almost 100 workshops most of which being based around robotics & physical computing kits designed and manufactured by ourselves and the GIC collective.

Our Impact - The difference we are making

Covid-19 has caused young people to miss out on many key benefits of educational & community settings, in many cases leading to a decline in confidence and self-esteem, feeling that they have been forgotten, left behind, and will never be able to catch up. Some are experiencing & reporting feelings of isolation, depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. This leaves them vulnerable to becoming caught up in a cycle of negative thoughts pertaining to their self-worth, abilities, potential, value as well as their future prospects, progressing to unhealthy thoughts & behaviours, affecting both their mental & physical health.

The Girls Into Coding (GIC)program creates opportunities for community development, collaboration, and connectedness for girls from diverse backgrounds by creating and delivering hands-on Tech activities such as robotics, physical computing, coding, 3D design & printing workshops via Zoom and in-person.

Our work has brought together groups of communities to engage in enriching tech activities, filling gaps in social and skills development by connecting them to a wider network of people at the events and beyond.  Our events have helped girls gain transferable skills; improved confidence; creativity; problem-solving; built mental resilience; mental health benefits of connectedness and teamwork; helping them to see their potential and pathways in STEM education and careers.

Avye is in the same age range as the attendees, so they get to see & be inspired by someone just like them immersed in the world of tech.

We’ve worked with hundreds of girls, many now excited to consider STEM education and careers. Enrolment multiplied during the pandemic; girls have developed increased confidence in tech settings, resilience, an appetite to further explore, and hundreds of girls have accessed free opportunities to explore coding, physical computing, 3D design/printing, and robotics.

What changes your contribution will make?

• Enable underprivileged and underrepresented girls to access tech opportunities
• Empower girls to continue their tech journey at home & beyond
• Improve girls' future life chances employability & social mobility
• Develop girls resilience, problem-solving & communication skills 
• Develop girls to become future mentors and leaders

Awards & Competitions

Crowdfunding to help give at least 1000 girls FREE access to Tech Opportunities

For Girls Into Coding to continue to make these opportunities inclusive and accessible to girls from a diverse range of backgrounds we work tirelessly throughout the year building relationships, applying for grants securing sponsorship, and fundraising.

Our target is to reach at least 1000 girls per year and so far this year we've reached just under 500 girls. 

Through this campaign, we want to raise £10,000 to help us achieve or exceed our goal of reaching at least 1000 girls a year.

The money raised will contribute towards:

• Delivering FREE Girls Into Coding workshop events
• Buying components, materials, and equipment to develop new hands-on activities & resources for the workshops
• Posting  the kits out to the girls (including return postage) for the hands-on workshops
• Providing coding kits for girls to continue their STEM journey at home and beyond.
• Providing STEM-related books for the girls.
• Covering Project Management & Logistics Cost

Please support us by donating to make this possible.

Thank you for your time and please help in any way you can. It would mean a great deal to the girls we are going to help. No level of donation is ever too small.

If you have another question, don't hesitate to get in touch

You can find more about Girls Into Coding at https://girlsintocoding.com/
and about Avye at https://10tonolimit.com/