Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg BusinessWeek with krol Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Got a number for you, mister stanoviek Okay, less than
Speaker 2: twenty percent of undergraduate computer science degrees go to women,
Speaker 2: less than twenty percent, and that data is coming from
Speaker 2: the National Science Foundation. So that means four out of
Speaker 2: every five degrees, four out of every five in an
Speaker 2: industry already dominated by men. Have you seen the Barbie
Speaker 2: movie Anybody go to Men? And our next guests are
Speaker 2: trying to change that and get more young women and
Speaker 2: individuals into coding.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very pleased to have with us this afternoon, oz Emiokparia,
Speaker 3: the CEO of Code with CLASSI. Also with us is
Speaker 3: kwk's content and community coordinator Alexis Williams. Both are here
Speaker 3: in our Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio. KWK is a nonprofit organization.
Speaker 3: It receives funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the philanthropic arm of
Speaker 3: Bloomberg LP. It is the parent company of Bloomberg Radio. OZI,
Speaker 3: I want to start with you just talk to us
Speaker 3: a little about this organization because it's doing some really
Speaker 3: important work.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So Coba Glossi started an twenty fifteen and is
Speaker 4: the brainchild of our founder.
Speaker 1: Carly Class.
Speaker 4: So for those who are familiar, Carli Class is an
Speaker 4: incredible entrepreneur, supermodel, philanthropist, and she started this organization back
Speaker 4: in twenty fifteen based on her own personal experience learning
Speaker 4: how to code and noticing when she lifted her head
Speaker 4: up from the keyboard that there weren't other women in
Speaker 4: the room. And so she used her platform, as she
Speaker 4: has done many a time, to reach out to her
Speaker 4: audience and say who else would want to have this
Speaker 4: coding experience? And she was overwhelmed by the response from
Speaker 4: her audience. Twenty one scholarship positions and she had thousands
Speaker 4: of people interested, and that was the germ for Code
Speaker 4: with Clossi back in twenty fifteen. And so here we
Speaker 4: are eight years later, and we now have over ten
Speaker 4: thousand young people in our alumni community. And this summer
Speaker 4: we were about to wrap up our biggest summer ever,
Speaker 4: sixty two camps, almost five thousand scholarships awarded, and we're kind.
Speaker 2: Of on a role I want to bring a lix cinema,
Speaker 2: But tell us about those alumni eight years that's a
Speaker 2: big chunk of individuals and time invested. What are they
Speaker 2: doing now? What are you hearing about that alumni base.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so our oldest cohort of alumni who went through
Speaker 4: our summer programming started in twenty sixteen, and so those
Speaker 4: folks are now twenty twenty five years old. So they
Speaker 4: are graduating from university, they're getting their first jobs all
Speaker 4: the way through the cohort that we have this summer.
Speaker 4: Who are some of our youngest scholars the summer A
Speaker 4: thirteen and so when they complete this program, they will
Speaker 4: join our global community. And so they're doing a range
Speaker 4: of things from you know, giving ted talks like Alexis
Speaker 4: has done, or winning science challenges. We had a winner
Speaker 4: of the Apple Swift Student Challenge. So they're really just
Speaker 4: sort of incredibly applying their skills and continuing to sort
Speaker 4: of pursue their passion in tech.
Speaker 2: Alexis, come on in on the work that you guys
Speaker 2: are doing and just kind of building out this community
Speaker 2: and what you are seeing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just think one of the most amazing things
Speaker 1: about Code with CLASSI is so many people are interested
Speaker 1: in anding in general, but I feel like it sounds
Speaker 1: something so you know, difficult and challenging. But the work
Speaker 1: that Code with Colossi does is really demystifying that idea
Speaker 1: of what is an engineer, What does it mean to
Speaker 1: make an app? What does it mean to make a website?
Speaker 1: So it's really amazing to offer this opportunity to a
Speaker 1: bunch of young people to have that demystified, to make
Speaker 1: their first apps, to make their first websites, because I
Speaker 1: think that's like one of the first steps into showing
Speaker 1: people who have been pushed to the margins in a
Speaker 1: space like engineering that it's not only possible, but there
Speaker 1: are a group of people out there that are more
Speaker 1: than willing and able to support them. And that's why
Speaker 1: the work that Code with Colossi.
Speaker 2: Does is we talk so much about inclusivity, and when
Speaker 2: you said push to the margins, tell us about some
Speaker 2: of the individuals, like who is actually participating in the program?
Speaker 2: Because I agree with you, I hear more and more
Speaker 2: when we talk about diversity, it's about inclusion, feeling like
Speaker 2: you're belonging in that if you know, you might be curious,
Speaker 2: but you're just like I don't belong Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Code with opens its doors to young women, gender
Speaker 1: expansive youth and trans kids, and really it's one of
Speaker 1: the first places where I talk to scholars all the time,
Speaker 1: they're like, this is the first place I've felt welcome
Speaker 1: and accepted. And that is honestly more important than being
Speaker 1: able to learn how to code. Like having it be
Speaker 1: a space having code with COLOSSI, be a space where
Speaker 1: this is one of the first times people are walking
Speaker 1: into a room and feel like they're being received with
Speaker 1: open arms is so important.
Speaker 2: We talk about tim and I have so many different
Speaker 2: conversations about diversity inclusion. We do it with women in
Speaker 2: venture capital and lack of funding and so on and
Speaker 2: so forth. But you know, there needs to be these important,
Speaker 2: big steps that are game changing, life changing, that really
Speaker 2: make a difference.
Speaker 4: And I think it's what's interesting is I think there's
Speaker 4: diversity on a lot of dimensions. About half of our
Speaker 4: scholars qualify for free and reduced lunch, so we have
Speaker 4: socioeconomic diversity. We also have folks that come in actually
Speaker 4: knowing how to code. So to Alexis's point, what they
Speaker 4: are coming for is not just the rigor of the
Speaker 4: skill building, but also the inclusion and acceptance. And so
Speaker 4: we're finding this really interesting mix of people that you
Speaker 4: wouldn't necessarily find out in the world naturally gravitating into
Speaker 4: these same spaces. Again, eighty percent of our scholars are
Speaker 4: people of color, so you know, not only gender and diversity, socioeconomic,
Speaker 4: skill level, political spectrum. We are sort of a space
Speaker 4: that welcomes all in terms of trying to crack open
Speaker 4: the door to a community.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to talk to you, Ozi about the
Speaker 3: way that your own experience at some of the biggest companies,
Speaker 3: some of the biggest tech companies in the world, kind
Speaker 3: of shaped the kind of leader you are today.
Speaker 2: Did you always feel like you belonged?
Speaker 3: Well, that's what I'm wondering. I mean, you were at
Speaker 3: Google for years, you were at EBA for years, you
Speaker 3: were in the not for profit space at the John
Speaker 3: Zuckerberg Initiative before this, talk to me a little bit
Speaker 3: about I don't know your experience and what you want
Speaker 3: to bring to the table, Like Carol ass, did you
Speaker 3: always feel accepted?
Speaker 4: Well, I think that's I think that's why I was
Speaker 4: so drawn to the COVID classy opportunity. So I joined
Speaker 4: COVID COLOSSI back in March. So I'm coming up on
Speaker 4: six months and so I have lived experience as a
Speaker 4: black woman in tech and often the only one in
Speaker 4: many of these rooms, and I think, you know, I
Speaker 4: definitely did not always feel accepted. I think there was
Speaker 4: a tipping point in my career where you feel like
Speaker 4: you have built your craft and understand your skills well
Speaker 4: enough to sort of feel comfortable in rooms, but you
Speaker 4: definitely build to that. It's not something that you sort
Speaker 4: of walk in the door having or knowing. But I
Speaker 4: think what that experience taught me is that we not
Speaker 4: only have to focus on upskilling the individual and providing
Speaker 4: incredible programs like we do at COVID Classy, but we
Speaker 4: also have to think about what are the systems that
Speaker 4: prevent people from being successful. So I would claim that
Speaker 4: I'm quite credentialed right Stanford undergrad master's degree, like so
Speaker 4: all the credentials, underachiever, but still found challenges. So it's
Speaker 4: not about the individual talent. There are also hurdles that
Speaker 4: are systemic, and so really thinking about that holistically is
Speaker 4: what we are going to do in the next eight
Speaker 4: years of Cope with Quasi's path is to say we're
Speaker 4: doing an incredible job of sparking the interest of a
Speaker 4: new generation but what are we doing with companies like
Speaker 4: Bloomberg and others to really think about the systems On
Speaker 4: the other side, what are the practices around hiring and
Speaker 4: retention and promotion that are really going to create opportunities
Speaker 4: for people?
Speaker 2: Well, and you know we've often talked about this with
Speaker 2: just women. I'm just going to very basic in terms
Speaker 2: of you know, women come in, men out of college,
Speaker 2: they start at the same level, and then as they
Speaker 2: start to go up the last it gets very very different.
Speaker 2: So where's the support network for that? I do want
Speaker 2: to ask you though before we go, because we only
Speaker 2: have about a couple of minutes. Alexis come on back, and
Speaker 2: it's a two week summer camp. I want to see
Speaker 2: if I've got the numbers right, sixty two camps, forty
Speaker 2: in person in twenty cities, twenty two virtual. It's like
Speaker 2: massive thirteen to eighteen year olds. So what are they
Speaker 2: do in those two weeks?
Speaker 1: So basically we have four different curriculums where a scholars
Speaker 1: are alone learning the basics to different curriculums like mobile applications,
Speaker 1: web development, AIML, data science. And it's a short two
Speaker 1: week period, so they're learning really basics and getting to
Speaker 1: build off of that basics that they learn in the
Speaker 1: first week with a final project in the second week.
Speaker 1: So it's important that they're setting down yeah, and getting
Speaker 1: their education, but then they get to actually put it
Speaker 1: into practice and then at the end of camp show
Speaker 1: their peers, show their families the great things that they're making.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's the youngest age that somebody can can join?
Speaker 4: Thirteen? And so what I think is remarkable again you know,
Speaker 4: diversity and age range. You have thirteen year olds who
Speaker 4: step up their game to be in the room with
Speaker 4: eighteen year olds who are also learning these skills, and
Speaker 4: it's again it's an application not only the hard skills,
Speaker 4: but some of the what I call twenty first century
Speaker 4: leadership skills around collaboration and critical thinking and creativity that
Speaker 4: are really also applied in that final project as well.
Speaker 4: So it really is incredible to see thirteen year olds
Speaker 4: sort of hanging tough there.
Speaker 2: I have a lot of nieces and I often just say,
Speaker 2: you know, part of sometimes you just gotta like try
Speaker 2: something because if we just spark an interest, and I
Speaker 2: feel like that's what you guys, like, you're exposing them
Speaker 2: two weeks is not a ton of time, but you can,
Speaker 2: you can pack a lot in and you can spark
Speaker 2: an interest or and then they know kind of like, Okay,
Speaker 2: now I know what is the question to ask her.
Speaker 2: I know something to pursue, and I think it's just
Speaker 2: really cool stuff. We'll come back and let us not.
Speaker 2: Things are going and we will love to bring Carly
Speaker 2: with you.
Speaker 4: We would love to, we would love to.
Speaker 2: I met her once. She's really tall,