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Kimberly Bryant is an electrical engineer and founder of Black Girls Code<\/a>, an organization that serves thousands of girls from underrepresented communities. As a woman and African American, she faced difficult odds while completing her degree at Vanderbilt university in the 1980s. But despite the challenges she faced as an engineering student and during her career, Bryant has triumphed to become not only a leader in the biotechnology industry but also an inspiring company founder and mentor. Born in 1967 in Memphis, Tennessee, Bryant developed the skills that would eventually help her earn a place at Vanderbilt university. Of her experience going to college, she says<\/a>: \u201cI was always the only black woman in most of my classes. As I got older as a student in electrical engineering, I was the only woman in some of those classes.\u201d And it wasn\u2019t just among the student body that Bryant noticed<\/a> the disparity: \u201cI didn\u2019t have any female professors for the whole four years.\u201d After graduation, Bryant was at times discriminated against in the workplace. Early in her career, one experience with being what Bryant terms a \u201cdouble-minority\u201d (someone who is underrepresented due to two factors; in Bryant’s case, race and gender) stands out. Companies are required by law<\/a> to not discriminate against people of different backgrounds during the hiring process. One manager<\/a> seemed to suggest that Kimberly was hired to fulfill these requirements, rather than because of her talent, when he introduced her to the rest of the staff on her team: \u201cWell, for Kimberly coming on, we got a twofer. She\u2019s a woman and she\u2019s a person of color.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In spite of experiences like these, Bryant persisted in climbing the corporate ladder, taking on leadership roles at companies like Merck, Pfizer, Genentech, and Novartis. When she left Genentech in 2010 as it was undergoing a merger, she decided to explore the startup scene in the Bay Area, with the eventual goal of starting her own company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bryant\u2019s inspiration for starting Black Girls Code was her daughter, Kai. Kai developed an interest in gaming at a young age, and Bryant wanted to fuel that interest. She recalls sending Kai<\/a> to a game development and design summer camp at Stanford University. Unfortunately, Kai observed that the instructors paid more attention to the boys than to the girls, and Bryant was painfully reminded<\/a> of the gender and racial disparity she had experienced herself: \u201cI discovered that the classrooms and the world she was entering at that really pivotal point in her development as a kid looked just like my college classroom 20+ years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2011, Black Girls Code was born. Currently, the organization hosts workshops around the United States and in Johannesburg, South Africa, so girls ages 7-17 can learn about programming and robotics. Bryant explains<\/a> the mission of the organization: \u201cOur focus is really to introduce girls from underrepresented communities to the computer programming and technology industry…It\u2019s not just about creating the next pipeline of employees for a tech company. It\u2019s really about creating the next generation of technology leaders that will create companies of their own.\u201d Her ultimate vision? Bryant dreams of building a world<\/a> \u201cwhere it\u2019s not an anomaly for a woman to be a computer scientist. It\u2019s not an anomaly for a woman or a girl to be a robotics engineer. I don\u2019t want those gender barriers to hinder the next generation from being whoever they are.\u201d And one piece of building this vision is the sense of community<\/a> and support that girls get through Black Girls Code: \u201cI wanted [girls] to have a community, and I didn\u2019t have that when I was majoring in engineering.\u201d To help foster this sense of community, Bryant is teaming up with companies that share her vision of the future. As part of its commitment<\/a> to encourage diversity in tech, in 2018 Mattel partnered with Black Girls Code around the launch of the Robotics Engineer Barbie doll, giving Black Girls Code a grant<\/a> so more girls can attend the workshops. The company also gifted Robotics Engineer Barbie dolls<\/a>–toys with a mission to inspire girls to achieve their dreams–to girls participating in Black Girls Code. And because Mattel wanted to inspire kids both offline and online, the company joined forces with Tynker to create the Barbie You Can Be Anything<\/a> programming experience, featuring six different career choices–including robotics engineer–so kids can imagine their futures in a whole new way! Check out the Robotics Engineer Barbie doll below:<\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Research<\/a> shows that diversity in the workplace isn\u2019t only a matter of equity, but of outcome quality: \u201c[N]onhomogenous teams are simply smarter. Working with people who are different from you may challenge your brain to overcome its stale ways of thinking and sharpen its performance.\u201d A team consisting of people from a variety of backgrounds–whether those factors involve race, gender, or belief system–can tap into the collective power of that diversity to envision new possibilities and, in turn, create innovations that reach broader audiences in more engaging ways. The reverse is also true: Without diversity, companies can risk creating outcomes that harm, rather than help, society as a whole. Bryant points out<\/a>: \u201cI think really having a diversity of participants in the technology industry is important because of all the new ideas that can come to fruition. If one one person is building all the things that we use in the future, we\u2019re going to leave a lot of people out of the conversation.\u201d We\u2019re excited to feature Kimberly Bryant because of her work, and we\u2019re honored to participate in the mission to prepare the next diverse generation of technologists! With a variety of over 2,000 coding activities like Minecraft <\/a>modding, Python and JavaScript<\/a> projects, the Barbie You Can Be Anything<\/a> coding experience, kids of all backgrounds will love learning to code with Tynker! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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