Kimberly Bryant

“I did not grow up around computers, so technology was not a tool used every day in my household. I was drawn to computer science due to the creative nature of programming and the technology focus.”

“If people are not tied to the work from a mission-driven focus, I don't think you're going to motivate them.”

“You can absolutely be what you can't see! That's what innovators and disruptors do.”

“We really pride ourselves on the notion that what makes our program special is that we really do our very best to make sure that everything we do is culturally responsive and relevant.”

“Few of my classmates looked like me. While we shared similar aspirations and many good times, there's much to be said for making any challenging journey with people of the same cultural background.”

“We want to create a community of girls who will be empowered to become catalysts for transformation in their communities.”

“Girls who participate in Black Girls Code think of themselves as leaders.”

“There's not enough said about the beauty of being able to focus on what you do well.”

“If I understood the great opportunities that are available to women and underrepresented minorities in the field of tech I would have made the transition from traditional engineering to the technology field much earlier in my career.”

“I was doing a lot of networking in the Valley, and I found that it was not a very diverse environment, and most of the conferences and meetup events I went to, there weren't many women or people of color in those rooms.”

“When I started Black Girls Code in 2011, there weren't any programs that had a foundation in communities of color to teach our kids about technology.”

“For me, if a company is really committed to diversity, that means everything. That means gender diversity, that means sexual orientation for me, that means race, ethnicity.”

“We need to really focus on getting this digital equity across the board in all of our public school systems, for both girls and boys.”

“By reaching out to the community through workshops, hackathons, and after-school programs, Black Girls Code introduces computer programming and technology to girls from underrepresented communities.”

“I definitely think there needs to be more of a focus and movement on getting coding taught in schools. There's really only so much after-school programs like Black Girls Code can do to really drive that change. And those classes shouldn't only take place in high school. We should make sure that we teach kids about coding at an early age.”

“We want to teach girls of color the skills they need and create a diversity of voices into the tech community.”

“As the coding movement continues to grow, the common narrative of the white male geek as the predominant influencer on geek culture will erode.”

“I had originally wanted to be a lawyer. Even when I went to college and majored in engineering, I still thought I'd get a law degree. Then I started taking electrical engineering classes where I saw some of the innovation happening around computers and solid-state technology in the mid '80s.”

“I don't think quotas are necessarily an evil. I think when we look at industry in general back to the '60s and the '50s, the way more diverse people like my dad and mom's generation were able to break into industry was because of affirmation action, because of quotas.”

“It's always been my dream to be an attorney, and I'm that weird breed of human being that loves being in a courtroom.”