NEW YORK, January 24, 2018

FJA announced today that it has made a donation to Girls Who Code, a nationwide effort to transform the lives of young women through computer science. In lieu of individual prizes, the donation was offered as a “high-stakes” motivator during FJA’s holiday team-building, demonstrating FJA’s commitment to collaboration and community. The donation helps fund afterschool programs and summer programs to teach middle and high school girls how to code and connect with female role models.

“Women have been pivotal in the tech space since day one, but as in other industries, we are not typically given the credit or financial recognition for our work,” says Margaret Medlin, Director of Business Solutions at FJA. “People need to ‘see it’ before they are willing to take a chance to consider women as good candidates for venture capital funding, hiring and promotions. As a Director, our team members, potential recruits and customers have proof that FJA values women in roles of authority. That says a lot about FJA, given that there’s still quite a ways to go to achieve gender equality in the US and the world.”

Girls Who Code (GWC) is working to close the gender gap in technology; the non-profit reports that fewer than 1 in 4 computer scientist are women, and that number is declining. But in the last five years, GWC has reached nearly 40,000 girls to help develop a pipeline of young women whose interests in computer science are encouraged and inspired. Donations help the GWC mission by contributing to scholarships and tuitions for young women to attend afterschool, summer schools and even summer classes on college campuses.

“Our strategy is to provide for the future of a growing industry,” continues SVP Joe Wilds. “As the workforce diversifies, it’s important and valuable to support efforts that begin at pivotal moments in adolescent development.”

“Girls Who Code is a great organization that will give back to the industry in the years to come,” says FJA CEO Marc Dutton. “Education will help to bridge gaps, develop skills and empower people.”

FJA shares a commitment to education and diversity. Recently established in-house training programs place colleagues as trainers to help expand and grow coding knowledge, practice, and creativity.

For more information:

Christine Aletti, Communications
Christine.aletti@fja.com
+1.720-398-3681