We all know that there’s an incredibly rich future in coding, but one thing that’s interesting about this trend is the gender difference. While historically there have been more men than women in tech roles, we’re seeing more and more women get the opportunities they need to get started in these lucrative fields. In Seattle, something really interesting is going on.

In the article This Seattle School Teaches Women to Code for Free you can learn about one city’s efforts to make a real difference. Not only do these women, most of whom are in their 20s or 30s, get free tuition for a coding program – they also get a stipend! This enables more women to truly put their focus on the future.

The program is a full year long, with the first seven months focusing on coding classes and workshops where they learn the ins and outs from tech pros, followed by five months of internship. This combination gives them the chance to not just learn the information they need, but to gain hands-on experience – which looks great on a resume!

As one of the students says, “The speed that we cover the material is really intense, and just being able to wrap your mind around it in the first place, as well as being able to then take that into the workplace is just intense.”

The program takes women from a wide range of backgrounds. The program director, Cynthia Tee, understands that many students didn’t go the technical path in college. She says they have women from retail positions, women who’ve worked in coffee shops, flight attendants, biologists, bakers – you name it!

According to computer science professor Ed Lazowska, who works at the University of Washington, almost 85% of programming jobs are currently held by men. He states that this is a problem for many reasons, including the fact that computer programming is a creative field. Any time you have creative people in a situation where one large group of people aren’t represented, you’re not getting the best results you can.

Of course you don’t have to wait until your kid has graduated from college to get them involved! CodREV offers incredible after-school coding programs that teach the basics to curious, interested, motivated kids. Get your daughter off to the right start and encourage her technological curiosity.