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Opportunity for young women to hone coding skills

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 20 Apr 2022

Skills development organisation GirlCode is seeking 400 unemployed young women to join its online upskilling bootcamp.

The upskilling programme forms part of the coding organisation's mission to close the gender gap in the IT/science, technology, engineering and mathematics industry.

In a statement, GirlCode says applicants must be between the ages of 18 and 35, adding they must be unemployed, a South African citizen, and have access to a laptop and the internet.

Taking place online, the coding bootcamp commences in May for a period of three months.

Candidates will be able to choose from two coding streams, namely full stack developer: Python and Amazon Web Services cloud practitioner, according to the statement.

“We have built an edtech platform that will be offering virtual coding classes to bridge the skills gap for unemployed young women. This means we will be able to enrol more women in our coding bootcamp without the restriction of physical connections,” explains GirlCode CEO Zandile Mkwanazi.

“The programme offers online webinars, practical sessions with industry experts, and self-guided work modules are accompanied by structured virtual live engagement for students to connect with each other, facilitators and mentors. This ensures course completion and acquisition of necessary knowledge to excel in the industry.

“It is equally important for us to ensure our beneficiaries have access to mentors. We have built a mentorship platform where the students can be assigned a mentor to guide their career choices and build soft skills for job applications.”

According to GirlCode, it also has a job board platform – EmpowerXx − to enable its beneficiaries to register for various job opportunities.

Established in 2013, GirlCode is a registered non-profit organisation aimed at empowering young girls and women through technology.

Over the years, the coding organisation has provided coding training to over 62 000 girls and young women across the country through the GirlCoder club, an online coding bootcamp and hackathons.

The organisation is on a mission to expose 10 million women and girls to technology by 2030.

GirlCode encourages local young women to join the online bootcamp, saying applicants will go through a screening process and aptitude test before being enrolled into the programme.

Applications close on 29 April. To apply, click here.

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