Etsy Offers a Coding Scholarship For Women

There has been a lot of debate about the lack of women in the tech industry. Many companies have tried to find new ways to reach women and close the gender divide. In an industry that has historically been extremely male dominated, recruiting women is important and our world can only benefit from having a more diverse perspective.



To help with this problem, Etsy, the website for crafters, has announced that they are teaming up with Hacker School, a company that offers a three-month coding program in New York. They plan to give out scholarships to women who want to become better programmers.



According to Etsy, the scholarship program will be awarded to 20 women. Each scholarship with be for $5,000, the cost of the coding course. The three month long class will be held inside Etsy's headquarters in New York. The course will teach coding to all skill levels and requires that all the participants write free and open source software.



Etsy, a website that allows people to sell their crafts, has a huge female base, but, according to Marc Hedlund, the VP of engineering, they don't have many women on staff. Only 11 of their 96 employees in Engineering and Operations are female.



Bringing more women into the tech world is a good thing, and more and more companies are looking for ways to reach out to women. One way to do that is to change the stereotype and perception of who works in tech. There is this persistent idea that coders are all nerdy, white guys is outdated and just not true. Not only do these preconceived images prevent young women from wanting to enter the field, it also has consequences for success in the industry. Bosses are human too, and their ideas of what a programmer looks like can determine who gets promoted, who works on the most desirable jobs and so on. This is true even on a low level. For example, ask a woman who works in a video game or computer store if they have ever been discriminated against and they will tell you horror stories of bosses and customers who assume that they don't know what they are talking about, solely because they are women.



To attract more women to the industry, there will have to be a lot of changes, not only in the way that talent is recruited but also in the minds of the ones doing the recruiting.These scholarships are a good start.