Kimberly Bryant Speaks at Female Founders Conference 2015

TL;DR

Kimberly Bryant shares the founding story of Black Girls Code, an organization teaching girls of color (ages 7–17) to code, with a mission to train one million by 2040. She blends lessons from Jim Collins’ Good to Great with Oprah-inspired wisdom, emphasizing core values, purpose, audacious goals, reckless disregard for the impossible, building a great team, envisioning the future, and following p

Key insights

• Black Girls Code is the only organization with a singular focus on reaching girls from underrepresented communities despite the explosion of other “learn to code” groups.
• The speaker considers herself an “accidental social entrepreneur” – she started the organization as a mother looking for productive activities for her daughter, not intending to run a nonprofit.
• The percentage of women receiving computer science degrees peaked at ~35% in 1989 and has since dropped to ~12–14%; for African American women it is 3%, for Latinas and Native Americans less than 1%.