2021 has been a busy year for the team at She Codes with 7 one day workshops, 3 Plus programs running, 4 Flash programs completed, and a range of new team members and partners on board. Now to reflect, before we step into 2022!
The goal for the team at She Codes has been the same since our inception in 2015, to upskill, inspire and educate women across Australia, and support them in entering technical careers. This year, we celebrated our sixth birthday, and reached an exciting milestone of impacting over 5,000 women.
2021 brought us into new areas across Australia, as we now run our programs nationally and into regional areas including Port Hedland, Karratha, Geraldton, Bunbury, Yanchep, Perth, Albany, Adelaide, and Brisbane. But in addition to that, our International Women’s Day Challenge, run in partnership with Robert Walters, reached 150 women across 21 countries throughout the world.
The participants of our programs have spent hundreds of hours learning, building, testing, collaborating on, and understanding their code this year. In fact, in our latest Impact Report, we measured that in FY21 we have spent more than 636 hours delivering programs, impacting over 1,149 individuals, with the cumulative total of hours participants spent coding in our programs in the past year exceeding 14,750 hours. That’s the equivalent of 614 full days or 1.6 years!
This was done through four one day workshops hosted at Murdoch University x Spacecubed in the Perth CBD, a one day workshop run at Ideation Co in Albany, two additional workshops focusing on Youth Education and Building a Landing Page in HTML/CSS, as well as 4 one week Flash programs, three Plus programs running, and of course plenty of opportunities for cupcakes and celebrations.
However, the best part of 2021 wasn’t the amount of programs we ran – it was the creation of opportunities, and post-program jobs for our participants. With 70% of alumni from the Plus programs across Perth and Brisbane pivoting into technical roles post program, an increase in social capital with women expanding their personal and professional networks by minimum of 5 valuable industry connections at each program, making the total number of connections in excess of 2,150, and a 34.7% increase in salaries for program graduates in comparison to entry level positions.
We also couldn’t run these programs, or impact this many individuals, without the support of our program partners. This year, we welcomed Bunnings, Databricks, Cash Converters, IMDEX, and VGW as partners, as well as running programs with the WEB Business Hub, Pilbara Development Commission and iHub Albany. These partners join our existing friends at BHP, Spacecubed, Murdoch University, RAC, Robert Walters, Ventra IP, and House Digital. We’re proud of the work we’re doing with these great companies, as we focus on upskilling both internal talent, and the wider community through our one for one partnership model. If you’d like to work with us in 2022 on increasing the level of diversity in the tech industry, speak to our team today!
With our multi year Federal funding through the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s Office for Women, we’ve been able to secure placements in our current and upcoming programs for women who really require the training, with scholarships contributing to closing the gap on socioeconomic disadvantage, and champion individuals who may have been unexposed to similar opportunities in the past. We kicked this off with a bang, with 10 spots dedicated to our Emergence cohort in this Perth Plus program.
This year saw She Codes featured in Business News, The West Australian, Startup News, Farm Weekly, Pilbara News, as well as interviewed on Startup West, Untitled Perth, and Paths Uncovered, as we continue to spread the word on hiring female talent to bridge the skills gap we’re currently facing in the tech industry. You can check our news stories out here.
Programs like these are really life-changing for individuals. Diversity in tech is everyone’s problem, not just women, not just government or big businesses with Corporate Social Responsibility budgets. It’s for everyone, and we challenge you to think about ways you can make a difference – whether that’s hiring female talent, supporting a colleague or a friend, nominating someone for an award, mentoring, making introductions. The festive season is a great opportunity to test out tech, and think about career changes.