Hear Me Code offers free coding classes to DC women

One of the best things about engineers is, when faced with a problem, they take the time and patience to break it down bit by bit and solve it systematically. Our next guest, Shannon Turner, is a coder and software engineer who saw specific problem here in town: how do we engage female and diverse entrepreneurs and make them coders? She’s the founder of Hear Me Code, a service providing free coding lessons to women in the D.C. region, and today, she discusses what it’s like to actually pull these new resources into our technology community.

ABERMAN: Shannon, thanks for joining us.

TURNER: Thank you for having me.

ABERMAN: Tell me a bit first about Hear Me Code, which—hats off to Helen Reddy for thinking of the name. What’s Hear Me Code about?

TURNER: Well, that’s exactly the the reference! You know, I am woman, hear me code. And so, I was going to these tech events as I was teaching myself how to code, and I was really frustrated by being one of the only women in the room, and I thought you know what? I’m self taught, why don’t I start my own group where we can all learn and grow together? And I started it with just four women around my kitchen table. I never thought it was going to be a thing, but it grew by word of mouth, and, four and half years later, we have three thousand women, all here in D.C., learning to code for free.

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ABERMAN: I think it’s great. I also think it’s important, because in technology, It’s so dominated by what I’ll call the “bro” culture. Do you think that women coders—and I think this will tie into the next thing I want to ask you about—you recently did an event called DCFemTech INSPIRE, do you think that, in some ways, women coders, women entrepreneurs in the technology field, have a harder time asserting themselves because of the dominant “bro” culture that exists in technology?

TURNER: I think, a lot of times, women will get talked over, or not listened to. And I think one of the great things about DCFemTech INSPIRE, this is the third year that we’ve run the event, and it is all about, you know how it’s really awkward to brag, and tell people about what you’ve accomplished? Because even telling the truth can feel like you’re just puffing yourself up.

So, at DCFemTech INSPIRE, we try to flip that script by saying, okay, this here, tonight, you get a chance to brag and tell everyone all of the amazing things that you’ve done. And it’s really magical to see when people are given that freedom, and that permission to say, yeah, this is what I’ve done, and I’m proud of it. It’s incredible to see people light up, and the whole room is just going wild, you know, cheering everyone on. It’s really a sight to see.

ABERMAN: You know, when I think about the predominant culture in technology, I do see a lot of bragging. I’ll go to a tech event, if I walk up to an entrepreneur or coder and say, hey, how’s it going, and they say, oh, terrible—it’ll be the first time. Usually it’s great, like, I’m killing it! Technology’s full of bragging. Yet, I don’t think you’re getting at that here, though, are you?

TURNER: Not quite. The thing is, for a lot of women, we have, our whole lives, been told to downplay, and minimize ourselves and shrink ourselves down, and not brag, and not talk about the things that we’ve done. And I think, because of that, a lot of times we get passed over, and looked over, and just not thought of as much. So, I think of DCFemTech INSPIRE as a way to, one, build confidence and two, to help people really step into saying yeah, I have done all of these amazing things. One of the things that I really love about DCFemTech INSPIRE, is we kind of craftily dovetail it into the DCFemTech Awards, which honor power women in code, design, and data, all throughout the D.C. metro area.

So, we’ve been running the DCFemTech Awards since 2015, and each year, we honor about 75 or so women who are just absolutely crushing it. So, what DCFemTech INSPIRE is about is, we’re going to build up your confidence, get you to really own your accomplishments, and hey, by the way, the nominations come out the very next day. We send out the nominations, and people are feeling good. They’re feeling confident, warm and fuzzy, and then they submit those nominations.

ABERMAN: What I love is, we’re here in the studio and you’re doing the Snoopy dance. You really are! You’re describing confidence. When is this event, and how do people find out about it?

TURNER: Yeah, so the DCFemTech Awards will be May 7th, 2018. This year, it’s going to be held at the Washington Post, which is really exciting. The Post has been involved in supporting a lot of events within the broader DCFemTech community. They hosted the DCFemTech Awards last year, They hosted the Tech Lady Hackathon in 2017. They hosted the D.C. Web Women’s Code Conference. So, they’ve been a pretty big supporter of a lot of the women in tech events.

ABERMAN: Over the recent weeks. I’ve had a number of guests on the show, we’ve talked about this whole issue of monoculture, and how if you you really don’t bring in a diverse workforce, don’t bring in a diverse leadership, you’re going to miss the mark meeting consumer needs, because we have a diverse society. Women buy a lot of stuff, people who aren’t white men buy a lot of stuff. You’re teaching and encouraging women to be confident. I think that’s the first step. What, culturally, do employers and business owners need to be doing to build a better connective tissue with coders coming from diverse backgrounds?

TURNER: I think for businesses and entrepreneurs, you really need to make that business case that, hey, if you build a diverse team, you’re going to have a better product, a better service, and you are just going to do better. Business that fail to do that, they fall behind. The case that I always think of is Apple. For the longest time, you could track your copper intake. I don’t know how many people need to like, meticulously track their copper intake, but what you couldn’t track was your period, which affects about half the population. For the longest time, you just couldn’t track that, and that always baffled me.

ABERMAN: If I’m an entrepreneur, or if I’m a coder, I’d want to know about this group. How do I join Hear Me Code?

TURNER: Yeah, so if you go to hearmecode.com, you’ll be able to join three thousand women who are all learning to code for free.

ABERMAN: I really appreciate you coming on the show, and I appreciate what you’re doing for the D.C. community, so thanks for doing that.

TURNER: Thank you.

ABERMAN: Folks, that was Shannon Turner, coder here in the D.C. region, and founder of Hear Me Code.

You can also check out the DCFemTech Awards by visiting their website.

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