Technology is starting to see an influx of women join the ranks of software developers and IT specialists. As a leading nearshore software development company, Perficient Latin America recognizes that the only way technology will reach new heights is through diversity as these new perspectives and voices serve a vital role to constantly enrich developments.
As part of Perficient Latin America’s social responsibility programs, its Women In Tech (WIT) organization brings together our talented female engineers and IT professionals to discuss trends, tackle issues surrounding representation in STEM, celebrates women’s contributions to technology, and works to motivate women and girls in high school and university level education to pursue a career in technology.
[READ MORE: Corporate Social Responsibility: Community Engagement Programs at Perficient Latin America ]
Girls Breaking Records
This past weekend, Perficient Latin America was host to its first event of the year: Codebreakers, a 5-hour hackathon organized by Tech Girlz in hopes of setting the record for most girls coding at the same time to celebrate of Women’s History Month. The session held in Colombia was just one of 20 locations worldwide, that included multiple sessions held in the US and 1 in Ghana.
Perficient Latin America, in association with Avanet, Medellin CSS and EAFIT University, received 37 girls from grades 8-10 from several schools in Medellin’s Technical Education Network. Medellin CSS’s leader, Estefania guided the girls through the workshop to provide the technical concepts to create a site in HTML and CSS, which they then used to build their own websites on various topics ranging from animals, sports, food, fashion and more.
Women Breaking Glass Ceilings
An important part of Saturday’s event was exposing girls in high school to technology. The event included talks from Avanet founder Sorey Garcia, and Perficient Latin America’s own Ximena Echeverri and Karen Ramirez on the possibilities of building a career and achieving a fulfilling professional future in technology for women.
“It’s important to have these types of events because it’s necessary to motivate girls to get started in the world of engineering. We don’t want them to think that this is just a man’s world, as it’s been perceived for many years. We want them to know that women are just as capable, that we can build quality software and enjoy doing it!”
— Ximena Echeverri, software developer at Perficient Latin America.
Overall, the girls were excited to participate, showed great potential and actively learned new concepts and skills to build their own CSS website. Most importantly, though, they contributed to setting a world record for girls coding at one time and were a part of this important milestone for women in technology.
