femSTEM.org is an effort to connect groups focused on encouraging girls and women in areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. This site is to serve as a searchable index and growing database for these organizations.
In January of 2013, I wrote my first lines of code. As I’ve grown in my coding abilities, my life has changed for the awesome. I’ve learned new ways to think about the world, my career opportunities have expanded exponentially, and my confidence has increased as I master new skills.
Prior to this experience, I always assumed programming was for men who were good at math. No one ever told me I could be a programmer.
I believe there are a lot of women like me, who are curious about programming and STEM, who need some extra encouragement to jump in.
As a result, I developed a passion for helping other women get involved with programming so they can experience expanded opportunities with STEM careers.
I wanted to take this passion and get involved. I found dozens of groups with a female + STEM mission, but I also found disorganization. Each group has a presence in different mediums and not all groups are represented across a single platform (like Meetup.com, Google Groups, Google+, Facebook Groups, Facebook Fan Pages, Twitter, and some do not have websites). In order to prevent reinventing the wheel and to save time, energy, and money if someone would like to start a female and STEM focused organizations, I want to create a single site and searchable index where people can find information on what groups already exist and how to get plugged-in with those groups.
Over time, I would also like to build out this database to include educational resources, articles, events, and profiles of individuals in these fields.