Saujani: Tech careers offer unprecedented upward mobility regardless of socioeconomic background
Reshma Saujani · Tap into collective genius (with Girls Who Code’s Reshma Saujani) | Masters of Scale · Nov 14, 2023 · at 15:43
Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code, discusses the economic mobility thesis behind teaching computer science to girls from diverse backgrounds.
0:00 / 0:17exact quote · 17.4s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“This is a job where you can march up into the middle class. Maybe for the first time, we're kind of starting kids out at the same place. And whether you are a young girl living in a homeless shelter in Harlem, Or a girl going to the best private school in New York City, you have an equal shot at getting a job at LinkedIn, right?”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Reshma Saujani
Saujani: Working mothers earn 58 cents for every dollar made by fathers
“We have a motherhood penalty, and what I mean by that is moms make 58 cents and every dollar made by fathers.”
Saujani: Childcare advocates must partner with the private sector, not await Washington
“There's people who say, ah, we don't want the private sector to do anything because we want a federal solution. And I say, you're, no, absolutely not, because these are millions of women that can have access to childcare while we're waiting for Washington to g…”
Saujani: Framing coding as changemaking inspires girls to enter tech
“So I thought, you know what, if I could connect coding to change making, I could inspire a generation of girls to go into technology.”
Saujani: Diverse cohorts learning new skills together build strong friendships
“I believed in this idea that if you actually bring together girls that were black, white, straight, gay, you know what I mean, rich, poor, and you put them in a classroom together, and you taught them a new skill set, that they would become best friends.”
Saujani: Soros and Ford foundations initially refused to fund Girls Who Code
“I went to the big foundations, Soros, Ford, they wouldn't write me a check.”
Saujani: The entrenched non-profit sector strongly resists newcomers and new ideas
“When you have a new idea, and you're coming into a busy, fractured space where there are lots of different nonprofits, but they've been doing it the same way for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, there's a real resistance to newcomers and new ideas.”