Google wants to get more girls interested in computer science, launching an initiative that will allow girls to program the lights that decorate trees in Washington’s President Park.
A part of Google’s Made with Code program, the initiative will see girls using a web-based, graphical programming editor named Blockly to animate the lights of the state territory trees that decorate the home of the White House.
This will mark the first time children across the U.S. will be in charge of the President Park’s lights, which have been lit up every year since President Calvin Coolidge lit the first fir tree outside the White House in 1923.
The initiative comes as more research points to the dwindling number of females taking on I.T. roles. A July 2013 ICT workforce study conducted by the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency (AWPA) found women occupy less than 20 per cent of positions in the majority of ICT occupations.
Overseas the numbers are just as poor. Late last year The New York Times reported that 0.4 per cent of all female college freshmen say they intend to major in computer science.
“As the mom of two girls, I know that technology is a pathway for their future success. Still, even as coding becomes more important, less than 1% of high school girls say they’re interested in pursuing computer sciences in college,” Pavni Diwanj, Google’s Vice President of Engineering, wrote on Google’s official blog.
“But I’m also an engineer, so I’ve seen firsthand how exciting CS can be. I fell in love with code early—my dad was an engineer and he encouraged me to enter a programming competition in the seventh grade. I gave it a shot, and I’ve never looked back. Ever since that day, I’ve known that when I program something, I’m creating something totally new for the world.”
The President Park tree lights coded will begin displaying on December 4th and will continue until January 2nd, 2015.
