CodeGirls kicks off its Karachi boot camp to empower young women with IT & business skills

CodeGirls has kicked off its first two cohorts of their Karachi boot camp on June 30th to empower young girls and women with vocational coding and business skills. The orientation ceremony of the boot camp was held at The Nest I/O and was attended by the boot camp participants, trainers, mentors, sponsors and supporters of the program.

The boot camp is a collaborative effort between multiple partners, that include ConsulNet Corporation, United Global Initiative, and WomenInTechPK along with international and local sponsors. The boot camp targets young girls and women aged between 15 to 30 years with no prior tech education and aims to impart them coding and business skills.

The boot camp comprises of over 80 hours of classroom training. Each cohort comprises of 60 participants who will be attending 2-hour workshops, three days a week. The participants will be trained and mentored by experienced professionals from the local technology and entrepreneurial ecosystem which makes the program focus on essential practical skills.

The orientation ceremony was hosted by Founder ConsulNet Corporation and COO Genetech Solutions Shamim Rajani with President P@SHA and Founder The Nest I/O as the guest of honor. Talking about the importance of tech education for women empowerment, Jehan Ara said,

“Women have multiple roles in society and sometimes it is difficult to fit into the persona of an ideal employee. We need to be part of the system, change it internally and have more women-friendly policies.”

Read More: Girls Can Code

In a video message, Executive Director United Global Initiative and Patron CodeGirls, Hasnain Walji spoke about the vision he has for the program and how a conversation with Shamim Rajani turned into a women empowerment initiative. Shamim Rajani also shared the stories of previous students of ConsulNet’s training programs who are now working in the tech industry at senior positions.

Founder WomenInTechPK and Chief Consultant OuttaBox, Faiza Yousuf also talked about building resilience and the why it is important to have the ability to adjust, retry and pivot whenever the need arises. Constant learning is important and more important is to learn from the negative experiences and emotions, which can help in building a resilient personality. She stressed upon connecting with a close-knitted and focused community which can help in both personal and professional growth and can help you foster bonds for life.

The second and third cohort of the CodeGirls boot camp is still accepting applications. Interested candidates can apply here.