Black History Month: Saluting Our Sisters
Happy Black History Month! This year’s theme is all about celebrating black women in history. From self-taught developers and YouTubers to space engineers, we wanted to show you just a few examples of inspirational black women in computing.
Hosanna Hali
Hali is a Technology Strategist with Microsoft. Hired in 2018, she started by being responsible for owning and executing technical strategy for her customers across Microsoft’s UK Policing business. Since starting her career, Hali has used her experience to help inspire the next generation of Women In Tech and has since been highlighted as one of the ten influential Black British women who code.
Amina Aweis
Aweis left her marketing career after breaking into computer science through a four-week intensive course in FurtHER. She originally started learning code through YouTube videos and just wanted to pick it up as another skill to add to her inventory. However, she found herself loving the creative process. Aweis is now the creator of the Coding Roadmap, an online resource to inspire others to get started in the tech industry without a degree. She also runs a YouTube channel called Develop with Amina, where she shares her experiences and insights into breaking into tech.
Fey Ijaware
Ijaware is a self-taught Software Developer who specializes in Web and Android Development. She is the founder of Code Possible and CodeandStuff, a software development learning platform and a networking community for women and non-binary developers in Manchester.
Annie Easley
In 1955, Easley began her career as a ‘human computer’ for NASA, analysing problems and calculations by hand. When hired, she was one of only four African-American employees at the Lab. As technology went on to evolve, Easley became an adept computer programmer. She developed and implemented code used in researching energy-conversion systems and analysed alternative power technology.
Dr. Anne-Marie Imafidon
Imafidon is a British-Nigerian computer scientist, mathematician, and entrepreneur. She is best known for her work as a champion of diversity in the tech industry and for co-founding Stemettes, a social enterprise that inspires and supports young girls and women to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. In 2017, Imafidon was awarded an MBE for her services to young women and STEM sectors.
Kimberly Bryant: Founder of Black Girls CODE
Bryant is an accomplished electrical engineer, working for companies such as Pfizer, Genentech and Merck. She founded Black Girls CODE in 2011 to encourage more girls of colour between the ages of 7-17 to computer science. Since then, Black Girls CODE has reached over 3,000 students and continues to grow each day.
To find out more about how you can help inspire women into computing, check out our I Belong programme.