Girl Develop It thanks our friends at Jump Thru for donating this great video. We also thank the JavaScript students tonight who volunteered to be a part of it. It means a lot to us that many students stayed after to get their picture taken, on a Monday night even!

jumpthru:

“We want to show women that software development isn’t just nerdy, but that it can also be fun and glamorous.”

- Girl Develop It founders Sara Chipps and Vanessa Hurst

Last night I listened to these smart ladies talk passionately about how Girl Develop It, the women-friendly educational initiative, started as an once-a-week lunch meeting of like-minded women developers in NYC.

Since starting in July 2010, Girl Develop It has already reached more than 300 unique students through more than 60 classes (around 20 courses) on HTML, CSS, Javascript, JQuery, Ruby on Rails and other programming languages.  Almost every one of Girl Develop It classes have sold out, some within hours of being offered.  Now there are Girl Develop It chapters in Columbus, Ohio and Sydney, Australia, with more to come (watch out for chapters in Boston and Philadelphia).  We here at JumpThru are big believer in Girl Develop It’s bold mission, and we are very excited to see the initiative take off in a big way.    

After some missed opportunities (these classes sell out fast!), I finally enrolled in Girl Develop It HTML/CSS 101 class that started last week.  Just one introductory class on the basics of HTML and CSS made web development much more accessible to a non-techie such as myself.  I learned that I have access to any website’s coding by right-clicking and, in Chrome, clicking on “Inspect Element.”  It’s like being able to peek behind the curtain to understand how the magic that is the Internet actually works.  

I’m looking forward to learning more about HTML/CSS and gaining valuable skills in software development, thanks to the bold vision of Girl Develop It founders, Sara Chipps and Vanessa Hurst.  

You rock, ladies!

(via jumpthru-deactivated20111219)