National Girls Learning Code Day Events Happening Across Canada

By Sonya Davidson

Ladies Learning Code -- a national not-for-profit offering beginner-friendly tech education -- is proud to announce the second year of the Canada-wide initiative designed to promote technology education: National Girls Learning Code Day. On November 7, 650+ girls ages 8-13 and their parent/guardian will attend simultaneous in-person workshops in 28 cities across the country plus hundreds more will have the ability to participate online from anywhere in the world via an online workshop. 

Ladies Learning Code wants to equip Canadian girls with the critical skills they need to navigate the world we live in today and thrive in the careers of future.

This year, in partnership with Google Canada, Ladies Learning Code has set out to teach girls ages 8-13 across the country important technical skills -- technical skills that will allow them to be passionate builders and not just consumers of technology.

Parent-child pairs will learn and collaborate together to build a simple website from scratch using the web programming languages HTML & CSS.  This event is created in hopes to inspire girls to discover a passion for learning about technology, experience the satisfaction that comes from being a builder of the web and become more confident and develop a willingness to try new things.  

“Coding and computer skills will open new interests and careers for Canadian girls,” said Colin McKay, Head of Public Policy and Government Relations at Google Canada. “Providing girls with the skills they need to build and create on the web is an important step in making sure Canada is a digital leader. We’re pleased that initiatives like National Girls Learning Code Day exist and provide girls the skills they need to build technology that helps make our world and future brighter.”

“Girls Learning Code Day promotes digital literacy while helping Canadian girls learn that technology can be a creative tool to change the world,” said Melissa Sariffodeen, Ladies Learning Code’s Co-Executive Director. “In an effort to increase digital literacy across Canada, there’s a way for every Canadian to get involved in National Girls LearningCode Day. Join us in-person as a learner or volunteer or take our workshop online and help us inspire the next generation of technologists.” 

List of cities and workshops can be found here at girlslearningcodeday.com

About Ladies Learning Code...

Ladies Learning Code is a Canada-wide not-for-profit organization that runs workshops for women and youth who want to learn beginner-friendly computer programming and other technical skills in a social and collaborative way. Today they have 22 chapters (and counting) across Canada, a thriving girls' program called Girls Learning Code and co-ed kids program called Kids Learning Code and a big goal to teach 200,000 Canadian women and youth to code by 2020. With sponsors and community partners that include TELUS, Microsoft, Facebook, Autodesk, Google and many more, Ladies Learning Code has become synonymous with technology education in Canada.