Nearly a dozen African American girls, ages 10-15, received coding instruction and exposure to corporate culture during the “Hour of Code,†a program hosted by Accenture–a global technology services company.
Held at Accenture’s New York City location, the girls were led by Calena Jamieson the East Coast program manager of Black Girls Code. A number of employees  from Accenture’s African American Employee Resource Group assisted the girls with their coding. Shantel Moses, research manager at Accenture, organized the event on behalf of Accenture and Black Girls Code.
Accenture employees have pledged more than 10,000 hours to participate in Hour of Code tutorials, teach computer programming to students, and promote access to computer science education.
This is the second year the company has collaborated with Code.org to support Hour of Code. It’s a global educational movement reaching tens of millions of students through a one-hour introduction to computer science and programming.
“The need for more computer science graduates has never been greater. Last year, there were 500,000 new computing jobs available in the U.S., but only 40,000 qualified graduates to fill them. We all must do more to close the skills gap and prepare students to join the workforce of the future,†said Paul Daugherty, Accenture’s chief technology and innovation officer as well as the ‘chief coder.’
“In today’s digital world, exposing each and every student–particularly girls and minorities–to coding is just as critical as teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. I am proud of the personal commitments Accenture employees are making to help introduce students to computer programming and the vast opportunities available to them in the computer science field.â€
In addition to the event in New York last week, there are plans to hold Hour of Code meet-ups in Atlanta, India, Manila, and Paris.
“Every student in every school should have access to computer science in order to become literate citizens of today’s digital world, and explore the possibilities of computer science careers,†said Hadi Partovi, co-founder and CEO of Code.org.
“By engaging and mobilizing its global workforce to participate in Code.org events and in classrooms around the world, Accenture shares our vision and provides invaluable support in arming students with the skills they need to succeed in the future.â€