Jeannette Wing
"Computational Thinking is the new literacy of the 21st century."
I was introduced to Jeannette Wing when I was doing research on Microsoft's innovative capabilities and discovered that she was the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Research. Whenever I find key people that are leading the organizations that I am trying to learn about I typically do research on these individuals as well since it gives me insight into why they are who they are and how they got to get there. Jeannette became a person that I followed as she is a leader in what I call the Computational Social Sciences.
Computational Social Sciences are your standard Social Science disciplines but with the added foundation of Computation via Computer and Data Science. This isn't exactly different from STEM, but, to put simply, it is how we can apply STEM to every aspect of our lives. By making these applications we can first understand ourselves and how we as humans function with the help of computer interactions (e.g. your smartphone). In order to actually do this, we need to learn how computers talk and this is done by learning code. Below I've curated a shortlist of what I think are the best resources for girls to learn how to code after reviewing the content:
- Girls Who Code - https://girlswhocode.com/about-us/
- Kode with Klossy - https://www.kodewithklossy.com/
- Made with Code - https://www.madewithcode.com/
- Women Who Code - https://www.womenwhocode.com/
- RailsBridge - http://www.railsbridge.org/
- And many more...
The push to get girls and women to learn to code is still in its infancy but needs tremendous support. Knowing how to code is great, but being a programmer and eventually, a software engineer is where we need more women professionals. Having the ability to think about problems computationally is a necessary skill in today's economy, and even more so in tomorrow's. If you or anyone you know don't know how to write basic code I urge you to learn how to today by checking out the links above. If you have any resources that I didn't list and you would like to share with others please put those in the comments section and I'll be sure to add them to our list!
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://nogginbazaar.com/2019/02/jeanette-wing/