Top 30 Kimberly Bryant Quotes

We need to really focus on getting this digital equity across the board in all of our public school systems, for both girls and boys.

When I started Black Girls Code in 2011, there weren’t any programs that had a foundation in communities of color to teach our kids about technology.

You can absolutely be what you can’t see! That’s what innovators and disruptors do.

We understand bringing girls into the tech space is about giving them skills to create social impact and change in their community.

I think that if companies build for diversity from the beginning from the ground up, that’s definitely the ideal state for how to build diversity into your company.

While there is still certainly much more work that needs to be done, Lyft actually believes in increasing diversity and inclusion within their workforce, and also, they believe in being a strong supporter of that in the community.

Girls who participate in Black Girls Code think of themselves as leaders.

If technology is designed mostly by white males, who make up roughly half our population, we’re missing out on the innovation, solutions, and creativity that a broader pool of talent can bring to the table.

It’s critical for girls to see role models like myself that are in technical fields. Looking for ways to come in as speakers or do a career day, or just find a way to connect with students or invite students to their workplaces to shadow them for the day… is critically important.

By reaching out to the community through workshops, hackathons, and after-school programs, Black Girls Code introduces computer programming and technology to girls from underrepresented communities.

For me, if a company is really committed to diversity, that means everything. That means gender diversity, that means sexual orientation for me, that means race, ethnicity.

Gender is not central to coding.

There’s not enough said about the beauty of being able to focus on what you do well.

I hope to literally change the world with Black Girls Code by changing the paradigm which produces the current monolithic ecosystem in technology.

I do believe that most startups who develop applications and digital products design ‘towards the middle.’ By this, I mean they design their products to reach the broadest consumer base possible, which is a sound strategy in some respects.

One of the biggest lessons that we hope to model for several folks, including some of the young women of color who come to me, is the value of understanding your worth, standing up, and demanding the best for yourself and not taking less.

Technology can be biased in how it’s developed if coders aren’t careful. There are apps that are clearly made by companies with no people of color on their team.

You cannot possibly be reaching the needs of your consumers when the makeup of your company is not reflective of the community you serve.

Few of my classmates looked like me. While we shared similar aspirations and many good times, there’s much to be said for making any challenging journey with people of the same cultural background.

I believe it is incredibly important for women and people of color to become the builders and creators in technology. In order to do so, we need to know how to code or, at least, know the language of coding – what I like to call ‘code speak.’

I was doing a lot of networking in the Valley, and I found that it was not a very diverse environment, and most of the conferences and meetup events I went to, there weren’t many women or people of color in those rooms.

I had been tracked from grades 1 through 12 in an accelerated program in the public school system in Memphis and had done well in math and science classes. When I was getting ready for college, my guidance counselors suggested I look into engineering.

I didn’t want my daughter to feel culturally isolated in the pursuit of her studies as I had as a young girl. I didn’t want her to give up on her passions just because she didn’t see anyone else like her in the classroom.

We want to create a community of girls who will be empowered to become catalysts for transformation in their communities.

I did not grow up around computers, so technology was not a tool used every day in my household. I was drawn to computer science due to the creative nature of programming and the technology focus.

We are not generally included in that narrative – people of color – definitely, women of color don’t normally fit that narrative that has been built around the whole image and the whole story of the Silicon Valley.

We’re creating this new breed of techies who are going to be the ones starting the tech companies of the future.

My first introduction to computers and computer programming came during my freshman year of college. I majored in electrical engineering with a minor in computer science, so I learned during my required courses at Vanderbilt University.

If I understood the great opportunities that are available to women and underrepresented minorities in the field of tech I would have made the transition from traditional engineering to the technology field much earlier in my career.

We really pride ourselves on the notion that what makes our program special is that we really do our very best to make sure that everything we do is culturally responsive and relevant.