Montana Code Girls, the youth initiative under Big Sky Code Academy, is a new program aimed at providing opportunities for girls and young women in Montana to develop their skills in the STEM fields.  After a successful pilot earlier this year, this fall they will launch their first statewide after school program, a two-hour, twice-a-week class where girls ages 9-19 work with coaches and mentors from tech fields to learn coding.  The class lasts the entire school year, and is FREE!

Through a partnership with the Bozeman Public Library, the first location for the class has been secured in Bozeman, and Montana Code Girls is looking for additional locations across the state to host this after school program.  It is based on the curriculum from the Technovation Challenge, a national competition where teams assemble to create web-based applications that meet a need in their community.

In addition to the coding part of this program, the girls learn entrepreneurship skills like writing a business plan.

With this first partnership now established in Bozeman, expanding across the state is a main priority.  If you are one girl, or a group of girls, interested in coding and want to bring this to your community, contact the Big Sky Code Academy.  All you need is a laptop computer and internet access, and they will work with you from there.

Additionally, if you are a woman in the tech field and are interested in being a coach or mentor, contact them.  A huge part of this initiative is showing girls the many women already working successfully in STEM fields, and giving them a chance to make those connections.

This is a wonderful way to give more opportunities to the girls and young women in the state.  There are so many great STEM jobs out there, and we can help our girls interested in those fields reach their full potential, by teaching them skills, providing them with examples of successful women, and helping them to build their dreams toward a good job, and a good future, right here in Montana.