The Bank of the West awarded $210,000 in cash grants during its third annual philanthropy award program that took place in San Francisco on November 13.
BlackGirlsCode, a nonprofit devoted to promoting young women of color in the technology industry was recognized as one of three winning laureates and received a $50,000 grant.
BlackGirlsCode reaches out to the community and introduces young black females to the world of computer programming via languages such as Scratch or Ruby on Rails. By introducing computer coding lessons to young girls from underrepresented communities, BlackGirlCode is attempting to show that girls of every color can become the programmers of tomorrow. Following their motto of “Imagine. Build. Create,” the non-profit attempts to bridge the digital divide where young black women grow up in homes where their White counterparts are twice as likely to have home internet access then they are.