Girls Who Code
organization

Girls Who Code (also known as GWC) is an international nonprofit organization that aims to support and increase the number of women in computer science. Among its programs are a summer immersion program, a specialized campus program, after-school clubs, a college club, College Loops, and a series of books. The organization is based in New York and has programs in all of the United States, Canada, India, and the United Kingdom. As of 2022, there was nearly 600,000 Girls Who Code alumnae.
History
Girls Who Code was founded by Reshma Saujani in 2012. She came up with the idea of creating the organization during her run for the United States Congress. Reshma's inspiration stemmed from finding that schools along her campaign route lacked female representation in computer science classrooms. The organization began under the White House Science & Technology Initiative. The second hire and founding curriculum director was Ashley Gavin before her career as a comedian. Girls Who Code runs programs during the academic year teaching high school girls computing skills such as programming, robotics, and web design, with sessions including projects and trips to companies such as Twitter and Facebook.
The public source identifies “Girls Who Code” as organization. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Girls, Code and organization.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Girls Who Code”, the useful work is to connect “organization” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q20857956. VIAF identifies the subject as 2231152261522717180003. The Library of Congress control number is n2018017230. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2022 and 2012.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Girls Who Code”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Girls Who Code primary sources, Girls Who Code archive and Girls research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Girls Who Code”?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Girls Who Code” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.