Beth Thomas, owner and lead developer for BMD&M, shared some of her coding knowledge with her daughter, Gemmah’s first-grade class at South Elementary School, as part of the global Hour of Code campaign.
“The students were so enthusiastic!,” says Beth. “I had a blast.” Hour of Code is an annual campaign run by Code.org, a non-profit organization “dedicated to expanding access to computer science, and increasing participation by women and underrepresented minorities.”
As a female developer, Beth knows first-hand that women are underrepresented in the industry. “I’ve attended conferences, where people took one look at me and assumed I was there as a designer, that I couldn’t code,” she recalls. “I don’t want my daughter to face that same discrimination.”
Beth Thomas, pictured with daughter, Gemmah, shows the first-grade class at South Elementary School that coding is cool! One of Beth’s web design students from Bristol Community College, Styles Vasquez also participated in volunteering at South Elementary.