Trinity's CodePlus, Google team up to tackle computer science gender gap

Posted on: 14 October 2022

(pictured: Posi Oshundaro at Tallaght Community School)

Trinity's CodePlus and Google Ireland have announced a partnership to help address the gender imbalance in third-level computer science.

The announcement came at the end of Ireland's first ever Computer Science week.

The CodePlus programme aims to support female students, helping them to make more informed decisions about further education courses in technology and ultimately consider a career in computer science. Google is making a funding commitment of €100,000 to the Trinity Foundation, as Trinity serves as lead institution for the project.

To date, CodePlus has reached more than 10,000 students and has been scaled to include NUI Galway and the University of Limerick.

(ltor) Katherine Fanning, Alexandra College, Dr Linda Doyle, Dr Jessica McCarthy and Ava Clabby, Alexandra College

Linda Doyle, Provost of Trinity College Dublin said:

"Programmes such as CodePlus have a huge role to play in addressing the gender gap that still exists in the ICT profession. The statistics tell us that not enough women consider ICT to be a viable career prospect. Research shows us that CodePlus is effective at changing students' impressions, particularly when it comes to choosing a career in computer sciences. Today's accouncement is a further endorsement of the excellent work being done by CodePlus and I want to congratulate everyone who has been involved in the programme. We are delighted to welcome our new partner Google as we continue to reach more and more of tomorrow's female ICT professionals and engineers."

Also supported by Science Foundation Ireland and Bank of America, the CodePlus programme includes a series of intensive gands-on coding workshops for female secondary students delivered on university campuses.

Jessica McCarthy, Head of Engineering at Google, said:

"We are delighted to announce our partnership with CodePlus. We know there are meaningful and rewarding career opportunities in this space but, sadly, we continue to see disproportionately lower numbers of women participating at both third level and professional junctures. 

"The CodePlus programme is an excellent way for young women to learn about computer science, coding and opportunities in the tech space at a point in their lives when they make decisions that can often impact their future career choices. We are encouraging teachers and students to sign up for the programme so that more young women can avail of the opportunities and so that computer science can benefit from having more women in the field."

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