Girls Who Code — Closing the Computer Science Gender Gap Through Summer Programmes
United States of America
Girls Who Code runs U.S. summer programmes teaching coding to high-school girls and non-binary students. An independent AIR study found …
Good practice
★ 74
★ 82
★ 78
★ 74
WeThinkCode_ — Achieving Gender Parity in a Free South African Coding Academy
South Africa · Johannesburg · See the South Africa profile
WeThinkCode_, a free South African coding academy selecting students by aptitude, raised women's intake from 6% in 2016 to over 50% by 2021 via its WomenThinkCode= campaign; its 2023 class (368 graduates, 177 women) reports a 98% employment rate.
6 %
Women's share of new student intake (2016)
~50 %
Women's share of new student intake (2021 cohort)
368
Class of 2023 graduates
177 (48%)
Women graduates, Class of 2023
98 %
Graduate employment rate
~R240,000
Average starting salary
Details
- Maturity
- Established
- Promoter
- WeThinkCode_
- Period
- 2016–present
- Keywords
- technology education, software development, coding bootcamp, youth employment
Context
WeThinkCode_ is a tuition-free South African coding academy, launched in 2016 with campuses in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, that selects students through aptitude and logic tests rather than prior academic qualifications, opening tech careers to young people regardless of formal education.
Activities
Through its WomenThinkCode= initiative, the academy has worked to raise women's share of new student intake.
Results
Women's share of new student intake rose from 6% in 2016 to roughly 50% by the cohort admitted in 2021 — reported independently by CIO.com, ITWeb and Gadget.co.za. The Class of 2023 graduated 368 students, 177 of them women (48%), and WeThinkCode_ reports a 98% employment rate among graduates at an average starting salary of around R240,000. These employment figures are organisation-reported and not broken down by gender in the sources reviewed, so the outcome specifically for women graduates is not independently disaggregated.
Implementation
Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.
Data sources
Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.
- C-NAPSE web research — accessed 2026-07-19
- WeThinkCode_ — accessed 2026-07-19
- CIO.com — How South Africa's WomenThinkCode= campaign met gender diversity goals — accessed 2026-07-19
- ITWeb — More women 'take a seat' at WeThinkCode campuses — accessed 2026-07-19
- Gadget.co.za — WeThinkCode graduates reach gender parity — accessed 2026-07-19
Attachments
Similar practices you may find useful
AkiraChix codeHive — Residential Tech-Training Pathway for Young Women in East Africa
Kenya
Since 2010, Nairobi's AkiraChix has trained under-resourced East African women in software development via its residential codeHive programme; reported graduation …
Laboratoria — Coding Bootcamp Closing the Tech Gender Gap in Latin America
Peru
Since 2014, Laboratoria has trained low-income young women in five Latin American countries as coders and data analysts. A World …
Digital Ambassadors Program (DAP) — Gender-Balanced Digital Literacy Corps, Rwanda
Rwanda
Rwanda's government-led Digital Ambassadors Program trains young digital ambassadors, 51% of them women, to deliver community digital-literacy training nationwide. Over …