Club equips girls with computer coding skills

Naperville Public Library once again will sponsor a Girls Who Code club at 95th Street Library as the national Girls Who Code organization recently approved the library's application.

Working to close the gender gap in technology, Girls Who Code is a national nonprofit leading the movement to inspire, educate and equip young women with computing skills.

Naperville Public Library, which is among the 500 after school clubs throughout the country, hosted the first Girls Who Code club in Illinois.

The library's first club consisted of 22 members who spent two hours of their Friday afternoons for 20 weeks throughout the 2015-16 school year learning about computer science. The girls, none of whom had any coding experience before joining the club, completed intensive coding projects and were exposed to speakers from Google and Groupon.

In the spring, the girls, who range in age from 10 to 17, were honored with awards during a graduation ceremony. They also listened to a keynote speech by Stephen Renk, computer science department chairman at North Central College.

For the upcoming 2016-17 year, 20 girls will be randomly selected to be part of the library's second Girls Who Code club.

To learn more about the club or to sign up to be involved with the club, go to gwcnaperville.wordpress.com/about.