We are always excited to get feedback about our courses and hear what the students got out of them. Today, we are pleased to introduce Isabella de Medici, who blogs about social media and the political climate at Polichic.

Isabella recently wrote about women in technology, and her experience taking a class at Girl Develop It:

“Knowledge is not power - it is opportunity. In the United States, the gender disparity in technology is high, and a large chunk of the population is missing from the information technology idea pool:

“In 2009 women earned only 18 percent of all CS degrees. Back in 1985, women earned 37 percent of CS degrees. Only 11 percent of corporate officer positions at Fortune 500 technology companies are held by women. A study on U.S. technology patenting reveals that patents created by mixed-gender teams are the most highly cited (an indicator of their innovation and usefulness); yet women were involved in only 9 percent of U.S. tech patents.”

I don’t know what I don’t know; likewise, the tech industry cannot fully understand what it is missing. In turn, government entities, NGOs and private companies focusing on national security and information technology limit the scope of their projects with so few domestic, female employees to choose from.

The tides may be turning, and local tech groups that function to bring information technology to women are emerging. One group is Girl, Develop It! (GDI). This organization holds classes for women interested in low cost programming, HTML/CSS, and databases/querying. If you’re looking to enhance work skills or simply curious about what all those acronyms mean (PHP, BBQ or WTF), check out their site.

I took a series on HTML/CSS, and the instructor was Alexis Goldstein. She is the Director of Operations at GDI, and founded aut faciam, which develops iPad/iPhone applications. She is a terrific teacher, engaging and funny, and the team from GDI create a friendly environment for learning, no matter your skill set. I learned quite a bit, and will be going back another series.

GDI is a group steadily building the foundation for women entering tech, with public and private sectors reaping the benefits:

“By teaching women how to create their visions on the web, we hope to enable them to inspire those that come after. We believe that women are a great complement to an awesome industry.”

Thanks, Isabella! We would love to hear from other students, so feel free to drop us a line anytime at board at girldevelopit dot com!