Today is Friday, 8th of March marks International Women's Day, a day celebrating gender equality and women's achievements. One industry where that would be welcome: technology.
Women make up just 30 percent of the workforce in Silicon Valley, according to the Kapor Center, a nonprofit that supports women and people of color in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM.
Girls also face obstacles in pursuing STEM education. More than a quarter of middle school girls and a fifth of high school girls say they're too embarrassed to ask questions in class, according to a study by Microsoft and KRC Research.
Organizations and companies across the country are working to change that. And on International Women's Day, some are launching initiatives to further that goal.
WALMART AND GIRLS WHO CODE
Walmart said it's giving $3 million to Girls Who Code, a nonprofit that aims to increase the number of women in computer science and close the gender gap in tech.
The retail giant will also be a founding sponsor of College Loops, a program that Girls Who Code created to stay connected with college-aged program alumni to help keep them in computer science.
GOOGLE AND INSPIRING GIRLS
Inspiring Girls, a charity that creates videos to motivate young women and challenge gender biases, launched a series of videos with a dozen female Google employees encouraging girls to pursue careers in tech. The women speak about their careers and what inspires them, and share suggestions on how to work in tech.
PLAN INTERNATIONAL INDONESIA (KITAKERJA.ID) x YOUTH IGF INDONESIA x KERJABILITAS x GENERATIONGIRL
Plan International launched an online platform called KitaKerja.id to learn soft-skills and ICT skills to prepare Indonesian youth to workplace. To celebrate International Women's Day this year, "Women in Tech" invited young women who works in ICT field to share their experiences and teach simple coding to inspire more young girls to involve with ICT field in the near future.