In today’s world, sometimes empowerment comes in code.
WIRED reports that in 2016, less than 20 percent of computer science majors were women. Believe it or not, this is actually down from the '90s. For Sharon Jones, founder of the Dottie Rose Foundation, that statistic is what drives her to do the work she does.
“It’s our time. It’s our time to step up, it’s our time to shine in technology and really show what we can do,” Jones said.
Named after Jones’s grandmother — who she said was always the one in the room saying “girl power” — the Dottie Rose Foundation is a Charlotte-based nonprofit program focused on providing technology education to middle school-aged girls. Started only a year and a half ago, Jones said they’ve already had two successful summers full of camps, and school years full of workshops and after-school programs.
“I think for most people, watching the young people’s faces just light up when they’re able to conquer something they didn’t think they could is pretty amazing, and how proud they are to show the work that they did."
“The Dottie Rose Foundation was born out of a way to really hone in and showcase women — and girls in particular,” Jones said.
Though a teacher by trade, she’s also taught computer programming and web design to other teachers and business-owners alike. Jones served as a career and technical education teacher in Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Wake County Schools, as well as a senior technical trainer with Central Piedmont Community College.
It was as an educator that Jones said she noticed the disparity specifically in school-aged classrooms between young girls and boys and their interest in STEM fields.
“The middle school age is a very pivotal time in a girl’s life,” Jones said. “There is not as much curriculum in middle school for girls in technology – it’s really when you start seeing the divide between boys and girls.”
Dottie Rose was born out of a passion to empower young girls to believe in their ability to create through coding and motivate them to infiltrate such a male-dominated field. Since many girls aren’t drawn to coding, she said it’s important to her to teach them how it intertwines with most everything we do.
“This is what I've been telling the girls all along,” she said. “Find what you love and we’ll find how technology fits in.”
To showcase this, Jones said their camps this summer blended art with computer science. In one instance, campers learned the history and composition of different fabrics and used that information to digitally construct a skirt. Then, the digital skirt was used to construct an actual skirt, and at the end of the camp, they put on a huge fashion show. It was a culmination of fashion, design, and of course, coding.
“We focused on how to integrate art with the concepts of computer science, so it wasn't as heavy on the programming side,” she said. “It was more about leverage and mastering computational thinking.”
Jones said they had a 90 percent return rate of girls coming back for more than one week of camp. They also gave out 15 scholarships. They get local companies involved in Dottie Rose, too; they had a “Girls in Tech” day with local data-analytics startup, Stratifyd.
“What I think is really powerful about the field of computer science and how it is so impactful, is computer science is kind of like the startup world; it’s this wonderful mesh of all kinds of innovation,” Jones said about how Dottie Rose and the entrepreneurial community in Charlotte exist alongside one another. “To me, computer science is like a wonderful world of all these things coming together, and the innovation is endless.”
Jillian Klingberg, Dottie Rose’s executive director, helps to organize the projects and activities for the girls. Jones and Klingberg have known each other their whole lives, and along with their intern, board members and some very dedicated volunteers, they’ve been the entire team behind the Foundation.
“I think a big part of it, too, is we — in our camps or workshops in general — we like to involve any community members,” Klingberg said. “We take the girls on field trips, have [companies] come in and speak, and that experience exposes the girls-slash-parents to these businesses as well, so we like to help others grow as we grow.”
And growing they are. This school year, they’re hosting an after-school program at the SouthPark Mall Microsoft Store.
Jones said the most rewarding part of empowering and educating young women is showing them what they’re capable of achieving; it’s what she’s doing this for.
“I think for most people, watching the young people’s faces just light up when they’re able to conquer something they didn’t think they could is pretty amazing, and how proud they are to show the work that they did," Jones said.
