Google’s Made with Code, in partnership with Rookie, a publication founded by actress and fashionista Tavi Gevinson, and synonymous with female empowerment, will advance girls’ creativity and confidence through a new coding project launching in New York City on Sept. 24. If you’re not in New York don’t worry, they’ve partnered with YWCA, a non-profit organization dedicated to the empowerment of women, peace and social justice for all, as well to expand the program to teen girls nationwide.
The purpose of the project is to show you how coding is quickly becoming part of nearly every industry, from music and fashion to nonprofits and sports, and how you can use coding to pursue your dreams, whatever they may be. You will get the chance to use code to create a custom multi-media collage in the Rookie aesthetic, where each creative element can be individually coded to move across the screen in various capacities. By the time time you’re done, you will have learned introductory coding principles like sequencing, loops, conditionals, all while completing a unique piece of art that can be digitally shared. You may gain a lot more than you can expect by completing this project, as computer science is a tool can allow you to tap into possibilities you may have never considered before, providing a new, invaluable perspective.
On Monday, Sept. 24, Google hosted the inaugural Google and Rookie event, bringing 30 girls from local YWCA locations (Queens and Brooklyn, NY) and 30 girls from Rookie’s fanbase together. In addition to doing the Google and Rookie coding project, the girls listened and participated in a Q&A with Tavi Gevinson and in a Zine-making workshop. A zine is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images selected by an individual, popularly photocopied into physical prints for circulation, providing girls with another outlet for their creativity. However, this is just the beginning.
