When Sasha Ariel Alston, a Pace University student studying information systems and marketing, noticed that there weren't many young women of color pursuing careers in technological fields, the teenager wrote a coding book to encourage girls who love STEM to continue studying maths and sciences.
After a successful Kickstarter campaign that made more than three times its original goal, Sasha Tech Savvy Loves to Code is here to show little girls that they can program computers for fun and profit.
Studies have shown that, although girls perform as well or better than their male peers on STEM assessments, women remain underrepresented in science and tech career fields. Numerous factors contribute to this gap, including the systemic sexism and racism that discourage women of color from entering or remaining in STEM fields. If books like Sasha Tech Savvy Loves to Code can encourage girls to study science and engineering, the influx of women into the Silicon Valley, Dallas, and Seattle tech communities could be a step toward solving the tech industry's prejudices.
Alston tells the Huffington Post that the first copies of Sasha Tech Savvy Learns to Code will be arriving soon. She hopes to place the book for sale on Amazon this summer, after fulfilling orders from Kickstarter backers.
