For the past six months, Foursquare has been working to close the gender gap in tech alongside Girls Who Code (GWC ) – an international non-profit organization leading the movement to inspire, educate and equip students who identify as girls or nonbinary with the computing skills needed to pursue 21st century opportunities. Through this partnership, Foursquare strives to ensure that girls continue to have access to educational resources and have equal opportunity to reach their dreams in the technology space.
As our partnership is hitting its six-month mark, let’s take a look at what Foursquare and Girls Who Code have accomplished.
Inventing The Future With Female Leaders at Foursquare
Foursquare hosted a virtual event for the Girls Who Code community called, “Inventing The Future With Female Leaders At Foursquare,” a discussion moderated by Foursquare’s Data Science Tech Lead Ali Rossi with a panel featuring Software Engineer NaNa Mathis, Product Manager Pooja Deshpande, and Product Designer Andrea Nguyen. These inspiring female leaders shared what it’s like to work at Foursquare and provided valuable career advice for aspiring women in STEM, such as tips for finding a job through a school’s alumni network, career fairs, LinkedIn, and hackathons. In particular, our Product Manager Pooja highlighted how she supplemented her job search by enrolling in classes and learning about prevalent industry trends, to stay up-to-date and informed. Pooja said, “Since joining Foursquare, I have been able to utilize these newfound skills and work more closely with the data science team, allowing me to contribute in meaningful ways.” Watch the recording of the session here!
Supporting Girls Who Code Clubs Around The Country
As part of our partnership, Foursquare aims to support Girls Who Code clubs around the country. We had the unique opportunity to sit in on a Girls Who Code club meeting with high school students at Sheridan Technical in Florida, along with the CEO of Girls Who Code Tarika Barrett and other prominent members of the GWC staff. At this school, a student-led GWC club was created due the school’s strong desire to support students with their interest in coding, and build a community where they can share this passion and learn from each other. GWC provides support for coding activities and projects, shares relevant resources, and offers career guidance for members ranging from freshman to seniors. The students meet regularly to work on different coding projects and discuss their shared interests. For example, this year the club hopes to take a field trip to the nearby Children Science Discovery Museum.
At the Girls Who Code club meeting, Tarika and other GWC staff answered questions from the students about their technical career path (e.g. internships/majors that stood out to employers), how they discovered GWC, why they joined the organization, and their vision for the club. The goal of this Q&A panel was to inspire high school students to further pursue their interest in coding and to share guidance on how they could turn this passion into a career. For us at Foursquare, it is heartwarming and great to see how our sponsorship is giving these girls access to educational resources in their aspirations in tech.
Empowering Girls To Find Career Opportunities In STEM
Recruiting is undoubtedly one of the most stressful processes a student will go through in their lives. As students prepare for the hiring season, Foursquare and Girls Who Code collaborated in a virtual resume review session to give students direct feedback and support on their job search process in the tech space. Female Foursquare employees who work in STEM-related jobs volunteered to participate in this program in an effort to empower these young ambitious girls to pursue a tech career. Additionally, Foursquare has been amplifying our internship and entry-level job opportunities with the Girls Who Code community via their Jobs Blasts platform.
Foursquare aims to make the world a smarter, safer, more just, and more sustainable place through our location technology and our employees. As a company, we are honored to partner with Girls Who Code and support the movement to close the gender gap in tech, making the world a more inclusive place through the power of location technology.
Learn more about Foursquare For Good,
