We’re so excited to announce that following the completion of our first She Codes Flash cohort in Perth, we’ll be bringing the same week-long, tech taster to the regions.
Coming to Pollinator’s City Hive in 2020 thanks to the support and funding under the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development and the Regional New Industries Fund, She Codes are able to grow our regional footprint and deliver our programs to a whole new community of women.
Hon Alannah MacTiernan, MLC, Minister for Regional Development; Agriculture and Food; Ports, visited the team at Pollinators to announce their successful application, sharing with the community the funding opportunity to bring new tech opportunities to the regions.
For those who aren’t aware, Flash is a one week program that caters to women of all backgrounds, teaching the basics of the key emerging fields in tech. This program currently focuses on Python fundamentals, web development, algorithms and data, as well as offering participants a glimpse into hardware.
Check out this year’s cohort in Perth!
“It was great to see all the women in our first cohort of Flash be so welcoming and open to learning during the program. Each day we watched their skills and confidence grow, and it’s such a warm feeling to know that our programs have the ability to help these women.” Founder, Kate Kirwin says.
As innovation facilitators who deliver social benefits to regional communities, Meshpoints have a strong connection and partnership with the She Codes team, working together to achieve a mutual goal. Meshpoints Lead Katie van den Brand, shares with us her thoughts on bringing She Codes to the regions.
“It’s great to see so many regional communities being given the opportunity to develop these in demand skills. She Codes offers pathways into the jobs of the future, by making it accessible and fun for participants in regional areas to take the next step in exploring these opportunities means we will see a boost to regional entrepreneurs, new businesses, and even remotely located digital specialists, which all contribute to a thriving regional economy.”
Recently, at our last one day event in the South West, women drove from Busselton, Australind and even Perth to attend the event at Maker + Co in Bunbury, and earlier in the year, our Geraldton workshop sold out, with 60 women and 9 mentors signed up to code at Pollinator’s City Hive.
We hope to encourage more women to explore career opportunities and business developments in the field of STEM and tech innovation. The enthusiasm for learning beginner level coding is infectious, Kate tells us. “We had girls as young as 9 creating websites at our recent regional workshops, and I can’t wait to see this enthusiasm transfer to our longer programs in early 2020.”
We’re currently taking expressions of interest for the program. Please leave your details here, as well as your preferred option on dates for the program in April/May 2020.