Five brilliant STEM professionals make up Girl Geek Academy, enabling and supporting coding and hackathons, 3D printing and wearables, game development, design, entrepreneurship and startups – all with the aim to get more women in tech, women in games, women who make, female designers and female founders.
Girl Geek Academy has been kicking big goals – and career education giant General Assembly noticed. In a new collaboration, they are launching a $15,000 Web Development Immersive Scholarship to kickstart one woman’s career as a developer.
The scholarship was announced during Girl Geek Academy’s recent #SheHacks Showcase event, which attracted over 100 women from the Victorian startup scene.
“We are grateful for the support of General Assembly for bringing this opportunity to life, and we are thrilled to be able to use our #SheHacks Showcase as a platform to get the message out that these courses exist,” Sarah Moran, CEO and co-founder of Girl Geek Academy said.
“We need more women applying to help boost the talent pool and increase participation in the startup space.”
Last year’s scholarship winner, Duyen Ho, had been trying to make a career change into web development for a full year and spent every spare dollar teaching herself to code. After graduating from this scholarship opportunity, Duyen achieved her career goal as a Front End Developer at Deloitte Digital Australia.
“In the past, female enrolments in our Web Development Immersive courses have been reflective of what’s happening in coding roles in industry,” Monique Brasher, Regional Director of General Assembly Melbourne said.
“For the first time ever, enrollments in our current course have an equal male-to-female ratio, and we want to see this diversity continue across all tech courses moving forward.”
Brasher said this is why General Assembly teams up with organisations like Girl Geek Academy. Organisations that help to build and foster a community, and run events that help attract more women into tech.
“Our female graduates are quickly landing roles at leading organisations, all through our courses teaching them the foundations of full stack web development and giving them the skills and confidence they need to land a role.”
Leading mentors from the Victorian startup community led the success stories at the #SheHacks Showcase before two new startups unveiled their businesses following their graduation from the inaugural eight-week #SheHacks incubator (created in partnership with key industry experts).
These new startups highlighted the real, tangible outcomes of the #SheHacks initiative in creating more women-led businesses in Australia. The founders of each startup first connected in July, at the hackathon event, and in just over two-months have developed a business model with real market potential.
The Web Development Immersive Scholarship is open for any women in Australia who is passionate about pursuing a career in web development. The team at General Assembly will follow a six-step selection process to assess the candidate’s motivation, technical ability and overall suitability for the course.
You can apply here.
Entries close on 24 October, with the winner announced later this month.