Bringing hands-on experiences to future engineers

On July 26, JPMorgan Chase’s Tech for Social Good team partnered with Girls Who Code and KPMG to pilot the Industry Immersion Day as part of the firm’s collective effort to address the gender gap in the technology industry. Building on JPMorgan Chase’s long-standing relationship with Girls Who Code, the workshop welcomed 56 curious young women interested in exploring technology careers.

One of these students was Nia, who has known from a young age that she’d like to be a UX designer. To develop her skills and achieve this dream, Nia attended Industry Immersion Day to learn about the vast opportunities available in technology.

Nia enjoyed learning about the Chase mobile app, given her specific interests in design. She also got the opportunity to meet UX designers at JPMorgan Chase and ask them questions about their work. She recalled being fascinated by the new coding languages that are being developed daily. “People come up with different ways on how to program and make apps and different platforms better,” she said, “so I just think that’s really interesting.”

Hosted at JPMorgan Chase’s Global Technology Center in Brooklyn, talented youth interested in tech careers gathered in “mentoring huddles” where employee volunteers talked about career opportunities and what a day looks like for a technologist at our firm.

Then it was time for these budding technologists to get to work. The students participated in an accelerated model of one of JPMorgan Chase’s flagship youth programs, GenerationTech, where they leveraged their skills to devise a creative, wireframe solution that promotes gender equality in response to the United Nations Sustainability Development Goal #5.

Each group had the chance to showcase their solutions, whether an app or a website, to their peers and the employee volunteers. “We’re so impressed with all of the students and how easily they came together to use their minds to come up with really creative ideas to tackle such a big challenge,” said Alexa Fradella, Vice President, Tech for Social Good at JPMorgan Chase.

Industry Immersion Day was part of Girls Who Code’s Summer Immersion Program, where students across the country attend a mixture of in-person and virtual workshops and hear from seasoned technologists about their careers.

After participating in the Summer Immersion Program via Zoom, Emily traveled from her New Jersey home to the Industry Immersion Day to interact with some of her peers in-person. For her, the highlight of the event was just that – teamwork. “We can just build off of each other’s ideas,” she said, “and work to make our ideas better, and make the project flourish overall.”

Girls Who Code shares Tech for Social Good’s north star, which is to equip youth with the educational resources and tools not only to consider a career in technology, but to thrive in one. The purpose of the event, and the partnership itself, was not lost on Emily. “I think this program is really beneficial to girls who haven’t really experienced coding yet and seeing the world of computer science and engineering,” she said. “It gives us that first look into what that field is like.”

To learn more about Girls Who Code, click here.

To learn more about Tech for Social Good, click here.