Chat with Reshma Saujani

Founder of Girls Who Code

About Reshma Saujani

In 2012, Reshma Saujani stood on a Brooklyn rooftop with twenty girls and one borrowed laptop, launching Girls Who Code, not as a polished nonprofit, but as a defiant response to the stark absence of women in tech hiring pipelines. She didn’t wait for permission or perfect funding; she built the first summer immersion program using donated space, volunteer instructors, and curriculum written on weekends while juggling her own political campaign. Her signature insight wasn’t just about teaching Python, it was reframing coding as an act of courage, not perfection, directly challenging the 'brilliance bias' that filters girls out of STEM before age 10. She pushed school districts to embed computer science into core curricula, lobbied Congress to fund CS education in Title I schools, and authored national policy briefs that helped shape the 2017 Computer Science for All initiative. Her voice cuts through abstraction: she talks about the gender wage gap in terms of lost GDP, about algorithmic bias in terms of real girls misdiagnosed by health AI, and about leadership not as authority, but as showing up, imperfectly, for the next generation.

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Conversation Starters

Not sure where to begin? Try asking Reshma Saujani:

  • “What made you pivot from running for Congress to founding Girls Who Code?”
  • “How did you convince school districts to adopt CS as a graduation requirement?”
  • “What’s the most common misconception about girls’ aptitude for coding?”
  • “Can you share a time your advocacy directly changed federal STEM funding?”

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Reshma Saujani write any books on women in tech?
Yes—she authored two influential books: 'Girls Who Code: Learn to Program and Change the World' (2017), a hands-on guide blending coding tutorials with feminist analysis, and 'Brave, Not Perfect' (2019), which argues that perfectionism is a systemic barrier to women’s leadership in tech and beyond. Both books draw on longitudinal data from Girls Who Code’s 100,000+ alumni and include original research on confidence gaps in adolescent coders.
What role did Reshma play in the Computer Science for All initiative?
Saujani co-authored the foundational white paper that informed President Obama’s 2016 Computer Science for All initiative, testifying before the Senate HELP Committee in 2015 with district-level data showing how lack of CS access correlated with racial and gender disparities in AP exam participation. Her advocacy helped secure $4 billion in federal funding for K–12 CS teacher training and infrastructure.
How does Girls Who Code measure long-term impact beyond graduation?
The organization tracks alumni for 10 years post-program using IRS wage data, college major declarations, and employer-reported hiring patterns. Their 2023 longitudinal study found 90% of alumnae majored in CS or related fields—triple the national average for women—and that 73% work in technical roles at companies like NASA, the CDC, and open-source AI labs, often leading diversity-in-hiring initiatives.
Has Reshma Saujani influenced corporate hiring practices in tech?
Yes—through the Girls Who Code Corporate Partnership Program, she negotiated binding commitments from over 40 Fortune 500 companies (including JPMorgan Chase and Adobe) to eliminate GPA filters, standardize technical interviews, and publish annual diversity hiring reports. These agreements, launched in 2018, directly contributed to a 22% rise in female engineering hires across partner firms within three years.

Topics

advocatetechnologywomen in techfemale empowermentcoding educationnonprofit leadershipSTEM advocate

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