Plenary: Kimberly Bryant & Sarah Guthals in Conversation

Abstract

Kimberly Bryant Kimberly Bryant is the Founder and Executive Director of Black Girls CODE, a non-profit organization dedicated to--changing the face of technology? by introducing girls of color (ages 7-17) to the field of technology and computer science with a concentration on entrepreneurial concepts. Kimberly has enjoyed a successful 25+ year professional career in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries as an Engineering Manager in a series of technical leadership roles for various Fortune 100 companies such as Genentech, Merck, and Pfizer. Since 2011 Kimberly has helped Black Girls CODE grow from a local organization serving only the Bay Area, to an international organization with seven chapters across the U.S. and in Johannesburg, South Africa. Sarah Guthals Sarah Guthals received her PhD from UCSD in Computer Science specializing in CS Education in 2014. During graduate school she built the beta version of CodeSpells, a 3D immersive video game designed to teach children to code through playing a wizard and writing "spells". She went on to co-found ThoughtSTEM, a company that builds software (e.g. LearnToMod), curriculum, and pedagogies for teaching children to code and empowering K-12 teachers to teach their students. She has written two books around modding Minecraft, launched a Coursera course for teachers interested in teaching coding and was recently named Forbes 30 under 30 in Science. Her passion is making coding accessible to everyone, with the goal of making it a basic literacy.