Young women encouraged to learn computer programming at the Dickinson camp

Dickinson, North Dakota – Young women in Dickinson are demonstrating to the community that women are just as capable as men in technological fields.

“It’s wires moving around so it’s sending them the best they can,” said a student.

Isabella Samman and the other young ladies in her computer coding camp finished a number of projects, including one that was a piano.

She has long harbored a desire to broaden her skill set and become proficient in coding.

“Everything around us, computers, video games, just like our phones in general, they revolve around code, said Isabella Samman, from Dickinson.

The Dickinson student stated that up until this point, she had no idea that she was capable of doing it.

One of the reasons why, according to the instructor, Sandra Bertelsen, they decided to put it on at Dickinson Middle School was because of this.

“Statistics show that women are a very underserved population in this area of work so that was something that I brought to our group, and I really wanted to be able to offer that in this part of the state,” said Bertelsen.

The camp is made possible in part by contributions from Women Empowering Women and the Roughrider Area Career and Technical Center.

The kids participated in a wide variety of hands-on activities, including the programming of robots and the programming of lights to shine in a variety of patterns.

“I used to have no idea but I was sitting in my room and I have little led lights across my room and I was like you know what, I know how to code that now, like I knew how they would work so it’s just cool to have that knowledge,” said Hannah Adams, from Dickinson.

Who knows, you might be staring at the next great innovator in technology.

This is the second summer camp for coding, and they are hoping that it will become an annual event.